Following is
information designed to assist you in your story of Herman Melville's Moby
Dick. Read
the site/s carefully and take notes; you are responsible for all
material on these pages.
http://www.melville.org/melville.htm#Weblink
1. Click on "biographical" then on "Hawthorne and Melville". What appears to be the reason Melville crafted Moby Dick into a more serious work of literature than he first intended?
2. Click on "Publishing History/Excerpts" and scroll down to "Contemporary Criticism and reviews," then skim down to paragraph 3, beginning with "Of all the extraordinary books" and ending with "London John Bull."
a. Explain the writer's view on Melville's treatment of religion in Moby Dick.
b. Give a quote that sums up what this author feels about the book as a whole.
3. Scroll down to "Melville's Geography" and click on "Nantucket." Click on the "Live Cam" and describe two of the scenes from today's Nantucket.
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html
(just for fun: assassinations foretold in Moby Dick)
1. List two assassinations foretold in Moby Dick according to the article.
http://www.online-literature.com/melville/mobydick/
1. Where did Melville acquire his knowledge of whaling?
2. Who took the shipwrecked Melville in on the Marquesas Islands?
3. What does this site assert about who or what Ahab and the whale represent to Melville?
4. What specific time of year does the Pequod set sail?
5. In what ways do the characters of Ishmael and Ahab represent opposite extremes in human personality?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A671492
6. What were the names of the Captain and first mate of the Essex?
7. What happened early in the journey that the crew considered a bad omen?
8. After two smaller lowering boats were destroyed, what destroyed the Essex herself?
9. Why did the crew decide to travel much farther than the nearest available land?
10. What were the crew members forced to do to survive at sea?
11. What about the death of Owen Coffin marks a line the crew members had not crossed before?
12. Describe how Melville learned about the story of the Essex.
13. What is a Nantucket Sleighride?
http://www.asklyrics.com/display/Mountain/Nantucket_Sleighride_LYRICS/81537.htm
(lyrics to "Nantucket Sleighride" - dedicated to Owen Coffin - by Mountain)
Go to: http://youtube.com
(Search for the song "Nantucket Sleighride" performed by Mountain)
http://www.whalingmuseum.org/online_exhibits/wm_bradford/index_web_bradford.html
14. Write a poem about one of the paintings at the Whaling Museum
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/jonah.htm
(Old Testament account of Jonah and the Whale)
15. What was Jonah running away from?
16. How did Jonah end up in the whale?
17. How did Jonah escape the whale?
18. What did Jonah do after escaping the whale?
Questions to answer as you read Moby Dick
a. Aside from his professional background, what actions and personality traits set Ishmael apart from the other whalers?
b. How is Ishmael like Jonah?
c. How is Ahab like Jonah?
d. What keeps Starbuck from acting against Ahab (several reasons)?
e. Why is Ahab so obsessed with the whale?
f. What does Ahab's leg represent to him?
g. Explain what you think the various Christian images (or their perversions) represent in the book, e.g. the three masted ship (like the three crosses on Calvary), the communion scene with the harpoons, the three mates and harpooneers (like the trinity), the dubloon nailed to a mast (like the silver Judas Iscariot sold Jesus out to obtain), others?
h. What does Queequeg represent?
i. What is unique about Ishmael's circumstances at the end of the story (as compared to the other characters) and what might the underlying message in this uniqueness be?
These sites have the entire text of Moby Dick on line:
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/moby-1.html
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Mel2Mob.html
http://www.americanliterature.com/MD/MDINDEX.HTML
background for this site courtesy of http://www.nref.com/merko/backgrounds/
animated gifs on this site courtesy of http://www.gifanimations.com/action/MenuSelection?group=1&parent=1
and http://www.gifs.net/animate/animate.htm
http://www.melville.org/melville.htm#Weblink
1. Click on "biographical" then on "Hawthorne and Melville". What appears to be the reason Melville crafted Moby Dick into a more serious work of literature than he first intended?
2. Click on "Publishing History/Excerpts" and scroll down to "Contemporary Criticism and reviews," then skim down to paragraph 3, beginning with "Of all the extraordinary books" and ending with "London John Bull."
a. Explain the writer's view on Melville's treatment of religion in Moby Dick.
b. Give a quote that sums up what this author feels about the book as a whole.
3. Scroll down to "Melville's Geography" and click on "Nantucket." Click on the "Live Cam" and describe two of the scenes from today's Nantucket.
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html
(just for fun: assassinations foretold in Moby Dick)
1. List two assassinations foretold in Moby Dick according to the article.
http://www.online-literature.com/melville/mobydick/
1. Where did Melville acquire his knowledge of whaling?
2. Who took the shipwrecked Melville in on the Marquesas Islands?
3. What does this site assert about who or what Ahab and the whale represent to Melville?
4. What specific time of year does the Pequod set sail?
5. In what ways do the characters of Ishmael and Ahab represent opposite extremes in human personality?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A671492
6. What were the names of the Captain and first mate of the Essex?
7. What happened early in the journey that the crew considered a bad omen?
8. After two smaller lowering boats were destroyed, what destroyed the Essex herself?
9. Why did the crew decide to travel much farther than the nearest available land?
10. What were the crew members forced to do to survive at sea?
11. What about the death of Owen Coffin marks a line the crew members had not crossed before?
12. Describe how Melville learned about the story of the Essex.
13. What is a Nantucket Sleighride?
http://www.asklyrics.com/display/Mountain/Nantucket_Sleighride_LYRICS/81537.htm
(lyrics to "Nantucket Sleighride" - dedicated to Owen Coffin - by Mountain)
Go to: http://youtube.com
(Search for the song "Nantucket Sleighride" performed by Mountain)
http://www.whalingmuseum.org/online_exhibits/wm_bradford/index_web_bradford.html
14. Write a poem about one of the paintings at the Whaling Museum
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/jonah.htm
(Old Testament account of Jonah and the Whale)
15. What was Jonah running away from?
16. How did Jonah end up in the whale?
17. How did Jonah escape the whale?
18. What did Jonah do after escaping the whale?
Questions to answer as you read Moby Dick
a. Aside from his professional background, what actions and personality traits set Ishmael apart from the other whalers?
b. How is Ishmael like Jonah?
c. How is Ahab like Jonah?
d. What keeps Starbuck from acting against Ahab (several reasons)?
e. Why is Ahab so obsessed with the whale?
f. What does Ahab's leg represent to him?
g. Explain what you think the various Christian images (or their perversions) represent in the book, e.g. the three masted ship (like the three crosses on Calvary), the communion scene with the harpoons, the three mates and harpooneers (like the trinity), the dubloon nailed to a mast (like the silver Judas Iscariot sold Jesus out to obtain), others?
h. What does Queequeg represent?
i. What is unique about Ishmael's circumstances at the end of the story (as compared to the other characters) and what might the underlying message in this uniqueness be?
These sites have the entire text of Moby Dick on line:
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/moby-1.html
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Mel2Mob.html
http://www.americanliterature.com/MD/MDINDEX.HTML
background for this site courtesy of http://www.nref.com/merko/backgrounds/
animated gifs on this site courtesy of http://www.gifanimations.com/action/MenuSelection?group=1&parent=1
and http://www.gifs.net/animate/animate.htm