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4.2 Reasons 12
4.2.1 Love of Mother nature 12
4.2.2 Ecological Awakening 12
4.3 Result: Survival 13
V. Conclusion 13
Bibliography 15
Acknowledgements 16A Eco-critical Interpretation of Moby Dick
I. Introduction
Herman Melville’s long neglected work Moby Dick is now generally acknowledged as one of the best literary works in history. The novel tells about the voyage of whaling ship Pequod. The monomaniac behavior of Captain Ahab in seeking for and revenging himself on the great white whale Moby Dick who has disabled him eventually leads to his being absolutely opposite to nature and his spiritual crisis. As a result, he loses his life and leads the other whalers to destruction except the only survivor Ishmael floats free on the ocean that he sees as his spiritual home. This work is appraised as “all epic of the sea such as no man has equaled”. (D. H. Lawrence 330), “One of the greatest tragedies in North American literary history, one of the greatest losses to American literature, and one of the most disgraceful episodes of critical stupidity in the United States are embodied in the life of Herman Melville.” (Annette T. Rubinstein 106).Meanwhile, critics once used malicious words when commenting on the novel in the early time, For example, The Athenaeum regarded the book as “an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact” (Watson G Branch 253)The Spectator proclaimed it “a singular medley of naval observation, magazine article writing, satiric reflection upon the conventionalisms of civilized life, and rhapsody run mad”. (Watson G Branch 257)The Albion called it “a perfect failure” and the United States Magazine and Democratic Review said it was“ dull, clumsy, ineffectual”. Those critics who praised the novel misinterpreted the intention of the author as well. The Evangelist announced it “a most striking picture of sea life and adventures”.(Watson G Branch 270). Hawthorne was one among the very few early readers to recognize its greatness. Critics began to widely recognize the significance of Moby Dick and its author until the 1920s. The first Melville biography-Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic by Raymond Weaver, acclaimed Moby Dick as “indisputably the greatest whaling novel” and one of the world’s greatest books”.(Weaver 105) Lewis Mumford published his Herman Melville later. In that book he regarded Moby Dick as “one of the first great mythologies of the modem world”. (John Bryant 18)