Free College Essays - The Evil of Mankind portrayed in Melville’s Moby Dick :: Moby Dick Essays

Melvilles primary feather heighten in his classic tonic Moby Dick is the evil of mankind, a point of focus consistent with his anti-Transcendental philosophical align custodyt. In Moby Dick, Melville illistrates mans feelings of evil toward better half man and nature through his thoroughly developed plot and character. Melville to a fault illistrated this in the comp singlents of the thematic layer which, underlies almost every characters individualal motives. Analysis of Melvilles own motives helps to clarify the authors reasoning behind each of the examples of mans evil in his novel. In order to fully understand his anti-Transcendental belief, it is necessary to first enshroud the origin of anti-Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is the term linked to the Emersonian-Thoreauvian set of beliefs, which incorporated the foundation of an Oversoul and the benevolent disposition of man as the default soul. Melville and others like him was debate to the Transcendental views. Th e natural opposition to a theory of mans general benevolence is one of his malevolence toward everything around him the primary vagary behind anti-Transcendentalism was all human people have a qualification for evil and that, given the proper circumstances, the evil in anyone would come by in their actions. The plot and characters of Moby Dick contri thate to its anti-Transcendental philosophy the entire invention revolves around the evil of man, which is demonstrated in practically each person portrayed in the book. The story itself is about man being confront against nature, as though the two were never meant to coincide peacefully. The men on the ship must fend for themselves against the harsh maritime weather and the likely evil whales which they hunt. Natural forces ravage the population of the whaling vessel in the end, all the narrator survives. In turn, man is reciprocally evil toward nature the men destroy the giant sea creatures for their blubber and drop the stri pped carcasses back up into the water. In addition to this collective evil of the people on the ship, many a(prenominal) of the individuals are shining examples of humanitys evil themselves. Captain Ahab, the primary character in the book, makes the sole dedication in his life one of vengeance on the great white whale after which the novel was named. Ahab does, at times, show that he has a less wicked location (signified by the scar that seemingly divides his body into two separate people), but in the end, the evil half of him overcomes his goodness.