Romanticism (Melville)

quotes on isolation

Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to everything but his own particular business there. (32) Bartleby is only separated from the office by a screen, yet still he manages to completely shut himself in - this demonstrates his ability to create his own isolated world.

quotes on rules and order prt 2

Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. (35) Why? Simply put, passive resistance isn't in the rules. We're used to human conduct that is a little more black and white than that, and Bartleby's peaceful protest is infuriatingly difficult to comprehend.

quotes on supernatural prt 3

Seeing him relapsing into his forbidding doom, and still remaining seated, Captain Delano [...] withdrew, on pretense of seeing whether, as he had prophesied, any signs of a breeze were visible. (77.234) Benito Cereno has the creepy tendency of just suddenly retreating inward. Chalk it up to his sickness, his nervousness, or something else going on...we just know it's spooky.

theme of duty

Since Billy Budd is set in the wake of the Nore Mutiny, a sense of military duty is not just a formality; it is a safeguard against massive uprisings in the British fleet. Duty often allows one to act thoughtlessly and simply follow orders, but in Billy Budd one's sense of duty becomes a true burden to carry. As the characters try to sort out difficult moral questions, it is unclear whether they are serving a higher obligation by doing their duty or simply hiding behind it. The story is nuanced enough that there is room for plenty of debate.

Theme of Slavery

Slavery is the Big Bad theme that informs "Benito Cereno": this story is, after all, about a revolt on a slave ship. While it's tough to get a read on Melville's opinion about the abolition movement, Babo and Atufal often seem like sympathetic characters. Clearly, they're just trying to get out of a bind and win their freedom back. But then again, we get Captain Delano being totally clueless about the evils of slavery and simply treating Babo like a piece of merchandise. It's totally possible that Melville was exploring a range of responses to slavery without actually taking a solid stance.

quotes on supernatural

This poor fellow now, thought the pained American, is the victim of that sad superstition which associates goblins with the deserted body of man, as ghosts with an abandoned house. (51.73) While we've never heard this particular suspicion, a goblin-infested body seems like it could be an interesting plot development on The Walking Dead.

quotes on slavery prt 2

"Answer," said Don Benito, still averting his glance, "say but the one word, pardon, and your chains shall be off." (52.81) Cereno rarely tries to assert power, but he clashes with Atufal. Why do you think this is?

Theme of Charity & Selfishness

"Bartleby the Scrivener" contains a very critical look at "charity," and the story may be a wry commentary by Melville on the way materialism and consumerism were affecting it. The Lawyer thinks of charitable actions in terms of cost and returns: "Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence I can get along with him. If I turn him away he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience." Note the lawyer's train of thought: he first pities Bartleby; then he recognizes the fact that Bartleby is useful to him; then he notes that Bartleby would be ill-treated at another office, presumably making him less useful to some other employer and, by extension, society; and finally, the Lawyer pats himself on the back for keeping Bartleby on as a worker. He "purchases" self-approval, a "sweet morsel for his conscience" which will cost him little. Through "charity," the Lawyer is actually just buying himself a good conscience. In a broader sense, he also believes he is making the best use possible of Bartleby. If he can at least get Bartleby to make copies, then at least he is doing something. Of course, eventually Bartleby refuses even to make copies. Still, the Lawyer decides that he will let Bartleby live on in his offices, so that he doesn't starve; but as soon as Bartleby affects his business, the Lawyer moves his offices and abandons Bartleby. The Lawyer does make the kindly offer to let Bartleby live in his own home, but the Lawyer might do this just to relieve himself of the annoyance of having to dealing with the tenants who complain about Bartleby. Of course, were the Lawyer to take Bartleby into his home, he could purchase great amounts of good conscience. But Bartleby refuses the Lawyer's charity, as he does whenever it is offered to him, saying that he "would prefer not to." The Lawyer then decides to keep Bartleby on his staff as a sort of "charity case."

theme of weakness

"Benito Cereno" may be a powerful little story, but Benito Cereno himself is weak-sauce. In other words, he relies totally on others to help him out, especially his beloved Babo. Even though Delano sees the remnants of a strong man in Cereno, the fact is that Cereno has been stripped of all his power. We'll never know totally what he was like before the slave rebellion, but it kind of seems like he was always a little dependent on Babo and the rest of the slaves.

quotes on religion

"But WHAT is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God - never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed - which he found a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do - remember that - and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists." (9.6) Father Mapple reminds the reader of a seldom-remembered fact about the Biblical prophet Jonah. Jonah gets swallowed by the whale not just for his sins, but specifically because he refused to do God's bidding. Father Mapple reminds us that obeying God isn't just difficult; sometimes it will actually rub us the wrong way. We'll have to be on the lookout in this novel for someone who chooses to obey himself instead of God...

quotes on cunning and cleverness prt 2

"But it is Babo here to whom I owe not only my preservation, but likewise to him, chiefly, the merit is due to pacifying his more ignorant brethren [...]" (47.43) Clever strategy or totally sincere? What do you think, Shmoopers?

quotes on choices prt 2

"I prefer not to," [Bartleby] replied in a flutelike tone. It seemed to me that, while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every statement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsay the irresistible conclusion; but, at the same time, some paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did. (27) Here, the Narrator tries to comprehend the incomprehensible: Bartleby's decision-making process.

quotes on choices

"I would prefer not to," said he. I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eyes dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Hat there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been anything ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-Paris bust of Cicero out of doors. (22) Bartleby's decision is so decisive that it's inhuman - his choices are so definite that his mind is unchangeable, a quality that makes them impossible to question.

quotes on slavery prt 4

"Master wouldn't part with Babo for a thousand doubloons [...]" Aha, we see what you're up to, Melville. Inverting the traditional master-slave relationship and the crucial role money plays to it? Very clever, indeed.

quotes on cunning and cleverness prt 3

"Now, master," he said, readjusting the flag, and pressing the head gently further back into the crotch of the chair, "now, master," and the steel glanced nigh the throat (75.222) There's cleverness on lots of different levels here. Babo deftly manipulates Benito Cereno to do his bidding, while Melville crafts an intense scene that's all about the little details.

quotes on foreignness and the other prt 4

"The deed and the implement employed sufficiently suggest that though mustered into the service under an English name the assassin was no Englishman, but one of those aliens adopting English cognomens whom the present extraordinary necessities of the service have caused to be admitted into it in considerable numbers." (29.3) These lines come from the newspaper article that appeared shortly after the events on the H.M.S. Bellipotent. They get everything wrong and claim that Billy was a traitor and that Claggart was an honorable man. To what extent are heroes and villains determined simply by how we relate events? How does narration determine what gets to seem familiar and what gets to seem foreign?

quotes on lies prt. 3

"[...] master told me never mind where he was, or how engaged, always to remind him, to a minute, when shaving-time comes." (71.199) While Babo is a skilled liar, his lies are dependent on complete control of Benito Cereno. What do you think would happen if Benito refused his shave?

quotes on Revenge 2

"[B]ut what's this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not game for Moby Dick?" "I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market." (36.34-35) Melville immediately sets up Starbuck as a rational counterpoint to Ahab. While Captain Ahab sees revenge as an end in itself, Starbuck is always going to be there to do a broader cost-benefit analysis. It's immediately apparently to Starbuck—and to the reader—that the sacrifices Ahab is willing to make in order to achieve his revenge literally aren't worth the price. The Pequod could make a lot more money just hunting whatever whales it finds and staying clear of the really dangerous ones.

quotes on foreignness and the other

A somewhat remarkable instance recurs to me. In Liverpool, now half a century ago, I saw under the shadow of the great dingy street-wall of Prince's Dock (an obstruction long since removed) a common sailor so intensely black that he must needs have been a native African of the unadulterate blood of Ham - a symmetric figure much above the average height. (1.2) This description occurs on the very first page of Billy Budd. It has no other role in the entire story. Why on earth is it there? Why does the narrator compare the sailors' admiration of Billy to another group of sailors' admiration for an African sailor? How is his depiction of the African sailor different than his depiction of Billy?

Choices and Consequences

Ahab is both a hero and a villain. In making a choice and sticking by it, he can be seen as valiantly exercising free will. But the consequences of his decision transform him into a villain, responsible for the death of such innocents as Pip and good men like Starbuck. His monomania or obsession chains him to a fate worse than that which might have prevailed had he not so stubbornly pursued his goal. Contrasting readings of the novel are possible, and most turn upon the interpretation of the character of Ahab and the choices he makes—or, rather, towards the end of the book, the choices he refuses to make. "Not too late is it, even now," Starbuck cries out to him on the third day of the climactic chase. The question is, in depicting a number of situations in which Ahab is given the possibility of drawing back, is Melville establishing a flaw in the individual character, or is he emphasizing the predestined and inescapable quality of the novel's conclusion? For much of the final encounter, the white whale behaves as any ordinary whale caught up in the chase, but in its last rush at the boat, "Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect...." These are exactly the qualities which Ahab himself has exhibited during the voyage. Ahab is finally seen as both defined and consumed by fate. When, at the end of the novel, Ishmael, the lone survivor, is finally picked up and rescued by the Rachel, we are reminded that he had become a member of the crew as the result of an act of free will rather than necessity, as a means of escaping thoughts of death

Good and Evil, Female and Masculine

Ahab picks his fight with evil on its own terms, striking back aggressively. The good things in the book—the loyalty of members of the crew, such as young Pip; Ahab's domestic memories of his wife and child—remain peripheral and ineffective, a part of life that is never permitted to take center stage. Other dualities abound. The sky and air, home for the birds, is described as feminine, while the sea is masculine, a deep dungeon for murderous brutes. Also contrasted with the sea is the land, seen as green and mild, a tranquil haven. In Chapter 58 Melville writes: "As the appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, for thou canst never return!" Although Melville's exact point of view is debatable, and the symbolism in the book is too rich to allow for neat comparisons, it can be said that qualities of goodness tend to be equated with the land, the feminine, and with mildness of temper. Viewing the Pequod's voyage as a metaphor for life, the book seems to be saying that in following ambition or any far-off goal, an individual risks missing out on many of the good things in life, including home and domestic happiness. The fact that there are no female participants in the novel has encouraged some critics to consider that this is a commentary on the masculine character—thrusting, combative, and vengeful. But it is because the other characters are all male, and they are not all like Ahab, that interpretations cannot be so straightforward. The very masculinity of Ahab is complicated somewhat by the possibility that he has been castrated, not by the initial encounter with the whale, but by the subsequent accidental piercing of his groin by his ivory leg. Critics as diverse as W. H. Auden and Camille Paglia have written about the sexual symbolism in the novel. It is a matter which invites debate, although any discussion on the subject needs to take into account that in the nineteenth century, it was an accepted convention to give certain characteristics a gender bias. Melville, like his contemporaries, was sophisticated enough to know that men and women could embrace a combination of traits deemed to be masculine and feminine.

quotes on rules and order

All who know me consider me an eminently safe man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence, my next, method. (2) This diagnosis is pretty clear - the Narrator is no wild rule-breaker. In fact, he's known for his steadfast adherence to rules and order.

theme of Conscience Versus Law

Although a number of the characters in Billy Budd possess strong individual consciences; fundamentally, the people on the ship are unable to trust one another. Paranoia abounds. Consequently, life aboard the ship is governed by a strict set of rules, and everybody trusts the rules—not the honor or conscience of individuals—to maintain order. The mistrust that the characters feel, and that is likely also to affect us as we read, stems from the sense that evil is pervasive. Evil men like Claggart seem to be lurking everywhere. Because it is impossible to know for sure whether people's intentions are good or evil, the evil men not only disguise their own insidious designs, they also impute evil motives to others. Most notably, Claggart misinterprets Billy's intention in the soup-spilling incident and subsequently plots his downfall. The Dansker understands this sort of dishonesty all too well, and as a result, he has acquired a cynicism in his dealings with other people. The Dansker's reticence may be interpreted in different ways, but one plausible interpretation is that he fails to take direct action against evil men because he fears the consequences of confronting evil directly, thus leaving other good men like Billy to fend for themselves. He may represent people who play roles in order to fit into society, never fully acting on their own impulses and distancing themselves from the rest of society. In this reading, the Dansker confronts a dilemma similar to Vere's. The Dansker likes Billy and tries to help him, but he ultimately sacrifices Billy to the claustrophobic, paranoid world of the ship, in which men are disconnected from their own consciences. In Billy Budd, men who confront the law and men who confront evil suffer similar consequences, suggesting the dark view that evil and the law are closely connected.

quotes on slavery prt. 1

An iron collar was around his neck, from which depended a chain thrice wound round his body [...] (52.75) Since Atufal was royalty in his former life, the fact that he's chained up seems particularly insulting.

quotes on sin prt 2

And here be it submitted that apparently going to corroborate the doctrine of man's Fall, a doctrine now popularly ignored, it is observable that where certain virtues pristine and unadulterate peculiarly characterize anybody in the external uniform of civilization, they will upon scrutiny seem not to be derived from custom or convention, but rather to be out of keeping with these, as if indeed exceptionally transmitted from period prior to Cain's city and citified man. (2.13) In this passage, the narrator seems to be arguing that virtue has nothing to do with civilization and politeness. Instead, he presents virtue as a more natural state, one that does not have to be cultivated. Is this viewpoint accurate? How does it affect how he portrays events later on in the story?

quotes on lies prt. 1

And might not that same undiminished Spanish crew, alleged to have perished off to a remnant, be at that very moment lurking in the hold? (58.123) Captain Delano never imagines that the slaves are the ones tricking him. His suspicions always revolve around the Spaniards.

quotes on morality and ethics prt 3

And the insight but intensified his passion, which assuming various secret forms within him, at times assumed that of cynic disdain, disdain of innocence - to be nothing more than innocent. Yet in an aesthetic way he saw the charm of it, the courageous free-and-easy temper of it, and fain would have shared it, but he despaired of it. (12.3) We here get some of the narrator's speculations as to why Claggart dislikes Billy so much. It's not too hard to understand why he should have spite for Billy's innocence when he himself has to struggle with good and evil within him. Can you equate innocence with moral good? Is an informed morality better than a naive one?

Appearance and Reality

Appearance and Reality Underscoring all of these themes is an ongoing consideration of the meaning of appearances. A key chapter in this regard is "The Whiteness of the Whale," a meditation in Ishmael's voice on the mask-like ambiguities which affect our interpretation of the visible world. There are ambiguities in the chapter itself, for in one of two footnotes Melville gives a firsthand account of his first sighting of an albatross. "Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God." Is the reader supposed to think this is Ishmael or Melville speaking? (Ambiguity becomes a major theme in Melville's next novel, Pierre.) In this particular chapter, Ishmael meditates on the strange phenomenon of whiteness, which sometimes speaks of godly purity and at other times repels or terrorizes with its ghostly pallor. The meditation leaves color references behind to become a general meditation on the nature of fear and the existence of unseen evil: "Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright."

quotes on Revenge4

As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma, - literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger: while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever. (94.4) For Ishmael, it's possible to let the revenge quest fade away as he's caught up in the almost sacred act of squeezing globules of solidified sperm oil. We're not sure we could have an epiphany up to our elbows in whale grease, but hey, each to his own. Ahab, unfortunately, can't seem to access this experience of release and purification; no comfort is possible for him. It makes us wonder what he'd do if he actually did achieve his revenge. Would he be able to relax then, or what?

theme: The Limits of Knowledge

As Ishmael tries, in the opening pages of Moby-Dick, to offer a simple collection of literary excerpts mentioning whales, he discovers that, throughout history, the whale has taken on an incredible multiplicity of meanings. Over the course of the novel, he makes use of nearly every discipline known to man in his attempts to understand the essential nature of the whale. Each of these systems of knowledge, however, including art, taxonomy, and phrenology, fails to give an adequate account. The multiplicity of approaches that Ishmael takes, coupled with his compulsive need to assert his authority as a narrator and the frequent references to the limits of observation (men cannot see the depths of the ocean, for example), suggest that human knowledge is always limited and insufficient. When it comes to Moby Dick himself, this limitation takes on allegorical significance. The ways of Moby Dick, like those of the Christian God, are unknowable to man, and thus trying to interpret them, as Ahab does, is inevitably futile and often fatal.

MD Plot Summary prt 5

As the Pequod approaches the Equator, Ahab scolds his quadrant for telling him only where he is and not where he will be. He dashes it to the deck. That evening an impressive typhoon attacks the ship. Lightning strikes the mast, setting the doubloon and Ahab's harpoon aglow. Ahab delivers a speech on the spirit of fire, seeing the lightning as a portent of Moby Dick. Starbuck sees the lightning as a warning, and feels tempted to shoot the sleeping Ahab with a musket. Next morning, when he finds that the lightning disoriented the compass, Ahab makes a new one out of a lance, a maul, and a sailmaker's needle. He orders the log be heaved, but the weathered line snaps, leaving the ship with no way to fix its location. The Pequod is now heading southeast toward Moby Dick. A man falls overboard from the mast. The life buoy is thrown, but both sink. Now Queequeg proposes that his superfluous coffin be used as a new life buoy. Starbuck orders the carpenter take care it is lidded and caulked. Next morning, the ship meets in another truncated gam with the Rachel, commanded by Captain Gardener from Nantucket. The Rachel is seeking survivors from one of her whaleboats which had gone after Moby Dick. Among the missing is Gardiner's young son. Ahab refuses to join the search. Twenty-four hours a day, Ahab now stands and walks the deck, while Fedallah shadows him. Suddenly, a sea hawk grabs Ahab's slouched hat and flies off with it. Next, the Pequod, in a ninth and final gam, meets the Delight, badly damaged and with five of her crew left dead by Moby Dick. Her captain shouts that the harpoon which can kill the white whale has yet to be forged, but Ahab flourishes his special lance and once more orders the ship forward. Ahab shares a moment of contemplation with Starbuck. Ahab speaks about his wife and child, calls himself a fool for spending 40 years on whaling, and claims he can see his own child in Starbuck's eye. Starbuck tries to persuade Ahab to return to Nantucket to meet both their families, but Ahab simply crosses the deck and stands near Fedallah. On the first day of the chase, Ahab smells the whale, climbs the mast, and sights Moby Dick. He claims the doubloon for himself, and orders all boats to lower except for Starbuck's. The whale bites Ahab's boat in two, tosses the captain out of it, and scatters the crew. On the second day of the chase, Ahab leaves Starbuck in charge of the Pequod. Moby Dick smashes the three boats that seek him into splinters and tangles their lines. Ahab is rescued, but his ivory leg and Fedallah are lost. Starbuck begs Ahab to desist, but Ahab vows to slay the white whale, even if he would have to dive through the globe itself to get his revenge.

The Exploitative Nature of Whaling

At first glance, the Pequod seems like an island of equality and fellowship in the midst of a racist, hierarchically structured world. The ship's crew includes men from all corners of the globe and all races who seem to get along harmoniously. Ishmael is initially uneasy upon meeting Queequeg, but he quickly realizes that it is better to have a "sober cannibal than a drunken Christian" for a shipmate. Additionally, the conditions of work aboard the Pequod promote a certain kind of egalitarianism, since men are promoted and paid according to their skill. However, the work of whaling parallels the other exploitative activities—buffalo hunting, gold mining, unfair trade with indigenous peoples—that characterize American and European territorial expansion. Each of the Pequod's mates, who are white, is entirely dependent on a nonwhite harpooner, and nonwhites perform most of the dirty or dangerous jobs aboard the ship. Flask actually stands on Daggoo, his African harpooner, in order to beat the other mates to a prize whale. Ahab is depicted as walking over the black youth Pip, who listens to Ahab's pacing from below deck, and is thus reminded that his value as a slave is less than the value of a whale.

quotes on sin prt 3

At least we can promise ourselves that pleasure which is wickedly said to be in sinning, for a literary sin the divergence will be. (4.1) Here, our narrator apologizes for one of his many digressions. Is there such a thing as "literary sin"? What is the pleasure that one can take in sinning? In having sinned?

theme of foreignness and the other

At the heart of Billy Budd are two characters that are twinned mysteries. To the narrator, one seems to be fundamentally good, the other to be fundamentally evil. Yet they are strange to him. He cannot understand why they are the way that they are. There are many other levels of foreignness in the book, and it is fascinating to see how the narrator's prejudices affect the way that he depicts events. Yet in Billy Budd what is so discomfiting is that even the most familiar seems strange. As much as the narrator focuses his energy on understanding Billy, Billy remains fundamentally "other" - a mystery.

theme of cunning and cleverness

Babo is the King of Cunning in "Benito Cereno." Come on, he practically orchestrates the whole scheme that keeps Captain Delano hoodwinked. It's kind of amazing when you think about the sheer number of things that had to work out in order to succeed: all the Spanish sailors had to be scared enough to do exactly what they were told and all the former slaves needed to play their roles perfectly. That's not just cleverness—that's organization. One of Babo's cleverest moves is hanging Aranda's skeleton from the figurehead. Now, hear us out: it's a shocking move, but it illustrates how far he's willing to go. Too bad the canvas fell away, conveniently revealing it all to Delano.

Slavery and racism

Because of its ambiguity, the novella has been read by some as racist and pro-slavery and by others as anti-racist and abolitionist.[41] However, by the mid-20th century, at least some critics read Benito Cereno as a tale that primarily explores human depravity and does not reflect upon race at all. Feltenstein sees "a trace of nineteenth-century satanism in Babo,"[42] and asserts that "Slavery is not the issue here; the focus is upon evil in action in a certain situation."[43] Later critics regard Melville's alteration of the year of events from 1805 to 1799, the Christopher Columbus motif, and the name of the San Dominick as allusions to the French colony then known as Saint-Domingue, called Santo Domingo in Spanish, one of the first landing places of Columbus. In the 1790s a slave revolt took place there under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, which led to the first free black republic in the Americas. According to scholar Hester Blum, the voyages of Columbus, "who initiated New World colonization and slavery," form the "negative inspiration" of Babo's revolt.[44] Columbus's importance for the novella is signalled repeatedly, most dramatically by the "follow your leader"-sign under the figurehead: as revealed in the legal documents, Columbus's was the original figurehead who had been replaced by the skeleton.[45] Robertson-Laurent finds that "Melville indicts slavery without sentimentalizing either the blacks or the whites." Any apparently kind behavior toward the slaves is deceptive by nature: not only does such conduct not change the fact that the captain considers the slaves his property, but it also rests on the motif that it is a "purely self-serving" financial interest of the captain to treat his peculiar "cargo" well. The Americans display no better moral when they board the ship at the end of the story: it is not kindness that refrains them from killing the Africans, but their plan to claim the "cargo" for themselves.[46] In addition to this principal state of affairs, "freedom within the confines of a slave ship did not protect the women against rape and sexual abuse," and in fact allowing the women to walk on the deck "made them more accessible to the lustful crew."[47] Delano's impression of the female slaves is part of his overall misperception: "After Aranda's death, the women, whom Delano imagines to be as docile and sweet as does with their fawns, shave Aranda's bones clean with their hatchets, then hang his skeleton over the carved figurehead of Cristobal Colón as a warning to the surviving Spaniards."[48] Since the 1940s, criticism has moved to reading Babo as the heroic leader of a slave rebellion whose tragic failure does not diminish the genius of the rebels. In an inversion of contemporary racial stereotypes, Babo is portrayed as a physically weak man of great intellect, his head (impaled on a spike at the end of the story) a "hive of subtlety".[49] Author Toni Morrison regards the "willful blindness" of Delano as a strategy "that absolves him of all responsibility. It is similar to the 'happy, loyal slave' antebellum discourse that peppered early debates on black civil rights."[50]

Theme of lies

Benito Cereno and Babo tell lies so fast in "Benito Cereno" that we're surprised they don't have twin Pinocchio noses. The real question is the motive behind the lies. Clearly, Cereno is trying to lie to save his life. Right? Then why does he die of grief after Babo is executed? How many of his "lies" are actually lies at all? Babo has a smoother tongue than his quivering buddy, which he employs to keep Captain Delano thoroughly hoodwinked. His lies come so easily and convincingly that it's hard to see them as lies at all. Then again, he's had a lifetime of practicing.

Vulnerability of Innocence

Billy Budd does not represent goodness so much as he does innocence, and the conflict between innocence and evil in this novel is different from the conflict between good and evil. The narrator makes clear that Billy is not a hero in the traditional sense. Though he has the good looks and blithe attitude of the ideal Handsome Sailor, his defining characteristic is extreme naïveté, not moral strength or courage. Billy does not have a sufficient awareness of good and evil to choose goodness consciously, let alone champion it. Because he is unable to recognize evil when confronted by it, he ultimately allows Claggart to draw him away from virtue and into violence. As a youthful, handsome, and popular sailor, Billy wishes only to be well liked and well-adjusted in his social role. He assumes that no one has cause to dislike him, and takes everyone at face value. Claggart, on the other hand, is full of deception, distrust, and malice, and interprets Billy's placidity as a dangerous façade. Claggart seems to destroy Billy for no reason other than the latter's innocence. Evil exists to corrupt innocence, and even though Billy kills Claggart, in a sense Claggart achieves a double victory over Billy in his own death. Claggart's actions cause Billy to fall from both social and moral grace by committing murder, and Billy suffers death as a consequenc

theme of morality and ethics

Billy Budd is nothing if not a book rich in moral and ethical questions. One could frame an entire course on the philosophy of ethics around Captain Vere's dilemma. The main problem is an apparent disconnect between military law and moral sensibility. Billy's execution feels unjust, and one cannot help but ask whether, in this case, right and wrong are aligned with good and evil. At the same time, the narrative is carefully constructed so that it is neigh impossible to judge Captain Vere. You can disagree with him, but you can't help yourself from empathizing with him.

theme of truth

Billy Budd, sparse at is, is a story packed full of double meaning and nuance. The narrator constantly claims that he is giving a completely accurate portrayal of events. He also tells us that Billy himself is incapable of falsehood. From the reader's vantage point, however, such claims to honesty only make one more attuned as to where the little lies and falsehoods slip into the text. In the novel, truth operates not only at the level of characters and events, but also at the level of narration, which makes the story extremely complex.

quotes on duty

Billy was now left more at a loss than before. The ineffectual speculations into which he was led were so disturbingly alien to him that he did his best to smother them. It never entered his mind that here was a matter which, from its extreme questionableness, it was his duty as a loyal bluejacket to report in the proper quarter. (15.5) These lines come up in Billy's defense after he fails to mention his encounter with the afterguardsman. First, how does duty tend to react when it encounters something that is unclear? Does it leave or it does it attempt to bring it to light so as to make it conform to duty? Second, is there any excuse for ignorance and naiveté when it comes to doing one's duty?

The nature of perception

Bryant observes an epistemological dimension to the story, as Delano admires the black race not for its humanity but for its perceived servility, which prejudiced view renders Delano unable to see any ability to revolt, and thus unable to understand the state of affairs on the slave ship. The issue is "not his lack of intelligence, but the shape of his mind, which can process reality only through the sieve of a culturally conditioned benevolent racism," and Delano is eventually "conned by his most cherished stereotypes."[51] Berthoff sees a contrast between Delano and Don Benito's "awareness," caused by the ""harrowingly different circumstances" through which they come to meet each other.[52] Seeing no essential difference between Delano's consciousness and the more or less blind way of life of every human being, he sees the story "as composing a paradigm of the secret ambiguity of appearances--an old theme with Melville--and, more particularly, a paradigm of the inward life of ordinary consciousness, with all its mysterious shifts, penetrations, and side-slippings, in a world in which this ambiguity of appearances is the baffling norm."[53]

quotes on sin

But are sailors, frequenters of fiddlers' greens, without vices? No; but less often than with landsmen do their vices, so called, partake of crookedness of heart, seeming less to proceed from viciousness than exuberance of vitality after long constraint; frank manifestations in accordance with natural law. (2.12) Is a sin that proceeds from "exuberance of vitality after long constraint" less serious than a sin of "viciousness"? How can you distinguish between the two? Consider some of the "sins" in Billy Budd. How would you categorize them?

quotes on man and the natural world prt 6

But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous - why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind. Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows - a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink? (42.25-26) Ishmael (or the third-person narrator) reminds us once again of the many different possible reactions to the natural world. Even something as simple as the color white can inspire every possible reaction in men, from awe to fear.

quotes on morality and ethics prt 4

But your scruples: do they move as in a dusk? Challenge them. Make them advance and declare themselves. Come now; do they import something like this: If, mindless of palliating circumstances, we are bound to regard the death of the master-at-arms as the prisoner's deed, then does the deed constitute a capital crime whereof the penalty is a mortal one. But in natural justice is nothing but the prisoner's overt act to be considered?" (21.28) Captain Vere is asking awesome King Kong-sized questions here. But all of his hostility seems to be directed at the men's moral scruples. He tells them to "Challenge them." Should it not be the other way around? Shouldn't the men use their moral scruples to challenge what the law is telling them to do?

quotes on power

First, the affair of the Spanish lad assailed with a knife by the slave boy; an act winked at by Don Benito. (68.181) Captain Delano is basically compiling evidence of moments where the power structure was upended.

theme of supernatural

Ghost ships, skeletons, and spooky sailors, oh my! "Benito Cereno" is chock-full of creepy moments that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The thing is, it's not always clear why they're creepy. Sometimes, we just get Captain Delano's sense that something is amiss, without any reasoning behind it. Other times, we get concrete examples straight from CreepyTown: think Alexandro Aranda's skeleton hoisted up on the figurehead.

quotes on truth prt 2

He possessed that kind and degree of intelligence going along with the unconventional rectitude of a sound human creature, one to whom not yet has been proffered the questionable apple of knowledge. (2.10) This quote, another characterization of Billy, relates back to the first. Here his honesty is classified as "unconventional rectitude." To what degree can Billy be called intelligent if the narrator wants to compare him to Adam before the Fall, to "one to whom not yet has been proffered the questionable apple of knowledge"? If Billy is really this simple, then do truth and falsity even exist for him? Does he know the difference?

quotes on lies prt. 2

He recalled the Spaniard's manner while telling the story. There was a gloomy hesitancy and subterfuge about it. (59.124) The manner in which people tell stories matters a lot when it comes to the effectiveness of their lies... but again, Delano doesn't suspect the slaves.

quotes on morality and ethics

His simple nature remained unsophisticated by those moral obliquities which are not in every case incompatible with that manufacturable thing known as respectability. (2.12) The narrator is pressing pretty hard upon us the point that Billy is some sort of special moral being, completely natural and almost incapable of conceiving of evil. Leaving aside the moral question for a second, is it possible for Billy to be respectable if he's incapable of "manufacturing" such a thing? What is the difference between "respectable" and "respected"? What relation does being respectable bear to morality and to ethics?

quotes on Revenge 3

I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab's quenchless feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of violence and revenge. (41.1) It's interesting that Ishmael specifically tells us that he's totally down with Ahab's crazy revenge quest. It's also interesting that he only tells us this after the chapter in which the crew swears an oath; did he forget to mention he was there while he was telling the story, or what? Ishmael's role as narrator and his situation as a character in the novel seem to be coming into conflict, especially because the reader probably doesn't support Ahab as much as Ishmael claims to do. Thus, revenge divides Ishmael from the reader. From this point forward, the narrator will seem less and less like Ishmael and more and more like Melville.

quotes on isolation prt 4

If he would but have named a single relative or friend, I would instantly have written and urged their taking the poor fellow away to some convenient retreat. But he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the universe. A bit of wreck in the mid-Atlantic. (74) Bartleby's state of total isolation inspires an odd combination of emotions in the Narrator; while he's understandably exasperated by the scrivener's behavior, this sense of loneliness plays upon his basic sense of human compassion - it seems unnatural for anyone to be that alone in the world.

quotes on isolation prt 2

Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me, what miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed. His poverty is great, but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall Street is deserted as Petra, and every night of every day it is an emptiness. This building, too, which of weekdays hums with industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home, sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous - a sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage! (51) Despite the weirdness and wrongness of Bartleby's situation, the Narrator is profoundly moved by its piteousness - he assumes that Bartleby, like most other people, is affected somehow by his lack of human interaction.

The Deceptiveness of Fate

In addition to highlighting many portentous or foreshadowing events, Ishmael's narrative contains many references to fate, creating the impression that the Pequod's doom is inevitable. Many of the sailors believe in prophecies, and some even claim the ability to foretell the future. A number of things suggest, however, that characters are actually deluding themselves when they think that they see the work of fate and that fate either doesn't exist or is one of the many forces about which human beings can have no distinct knowledge. Ahab, for example, clearly exploits the sailors' belief in fate to manipulate them into thinking that the quest for Moby Dick is their common destiny. Moreover, the prophesies of Fedallah and others seem to be undercut in Chapter 99, when various individuals interpret the doubloon in different ways, demonstrating that humans project what they want to see when they try to interpret signs and portents.

quotes on man and the natural world

In fact he was one of those sea dogs in whom all the hardship and peril of naval life in the great prolonged wars of his time never impaired the natural instinct for sensuous enjoyment. (1.7) Is hardship unnatural? Is the drive to "sensuous enjoyment" a natural instinct? Think of different species of animals. What types of journeys do they undergo that might be comparable to human voyages on the sea? In short, is the sailor's life going against nature or is it a natural life to lead?

quotes on man and the natural world prt 5

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. (68.7) Here the narrator envies the whale's capacity to keep itself separate from its environment; its insides are, in a way, impenetrable, hardly affected by the outside world. This relates to some of the arguments made in the New Testament about what Christians should be: even though they are "in the world" they shouldn't be "of the world" or "be conformed" to it. (We'd cite specific passages, but these phrases recur again and again in different books.) Even if you don't interpret the whale as an allegory for the Christian believer, it's clear that the novel depicts whales as both part of the world and intriguingly separate from it.

quotes on morality & ethics

It is not seldom the case that, when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind. (29) Here, the Narrator offers a description, in a nutshell, of how ethics often work - simply by a process of general consensus. In seeking the advice of Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut, he hopes to determine what is "just" and "right."

theme of sin

It is unclear whether or not anyone sins in Billy Budd. Sin is an unambiguous word. It means that an action is fundamentally wrong. In the novel, however, everyone's actions seem to be in part motivated by good and in part motivated by evil, in part in their control and in part not. Yet, as a reader, there is an enormous desire to declare some characters evil and others good. Whether or not any single action can be called a sin, the idea of sin pervades the pages of Billy Budd and the fear of sin is a huge motivating factor for many of the characters.

MD Plot Summary prt 4

Leaving the Samuel Enderby, Ahab wrenches his ivory leg and orders the carpenter to fashion him another. Starbuck informs Ahab of oil leakage in the hold. Reluctantly, Ahab orders the harpooneers to inspect the casks. Queequeg, sweating all day below decks, develops a chill and soon is almost mortally feverish. The carpenter makes a coffin for Queequeg, who fears an ordinary burial at sea. Queequeg tries it for size, with Pip sobbing and beating his tambourine, standing by and calling himself a coward while he praises Queequeg for his gameness. Yet Queequeg suddenly rallies, briefly convalesces, and leaps up, back in good health. Henceforth, he uses his coffin for a spare seachest, which is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequod's life buoy. The Pequod sails northeast toward Formosa and into the Pacific Ocean. Ahab, with one nostril, smells the musk from the Bashee isles, and with the other, the salt of the waters where Moby Dick swims. Ahab goes to Perth, the blacksmith, with bag of racehorse shoenail stubs to be forged into the shank of a special harpoon, and with his razors for Perth to melt and fashion into a harpoon barb. Ahab tempers the barb in blood from Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo. The Pequod gams next with the Bachelor, a Nantucket ship heading home full of sperm oil. Every now and then, the Pequod lowers for whales with success. On one of those nights in the whaleboat, Fedallah prophesies that neither hearse nor coffin can be Ahab's, that before he dies, Ahab must see two hearses — one not made by mortal hands and the other made of American wood — that Fedallah will precede his captain in death, and finally that only hemp can kill Ahab.

theme of power

Life aboard the San Dominick is one big power struggle. While the power in "Benito Cereno" had previously been in the hands of Cereno and the rest of the Spanish crew, the slave rebellion totally upended that. Like Delano observes without knowing it, the surviving Spanish crew definitely has some issues adjusting to their new position. The thing is, everyone on the ship realizes that the power could shift hands at any time. That's why Babo takes such great care to seem extra-attentive to Cereno. Only by pretending everything is normal is he able to hang onto his power—at least until everything comes crashing down.

theme of individuality vs. society

Melville is deeply interested in the ways in which society forces people to curtail or limit their individuality. When the warship Bellipotent extracts the unassuming Billy from his former ship, the Rights-of-Man, the symbolism is relatively explicit: society is all-powerful, it compels men into participation in war, and in doing so it can readily dispense with the rights of the individual. The names of the ships alone—Bellipotent means "power of war"—suggest as much. Captain Vere's dilemma in dealing with Billy illustrates how society requires the separation of one's inner feelings from one's social obligations. In prosecuting Billy, Vere decides to follow the letter of the law, despite his own sense that Billy personifies goodness and innocence. Feeling the pressure of his position as a leader with a responsibility to see that the men obey the Mutiny Act, Vere forces himself to disregard his own feelings about Billy's situation and even urges the jurors in the case to do the same. Laws, not the dictates of individual conscience, govern society; in order to fill a social role well, it may sometimes be necessary to act against one's own impulses. To be a "good" captain, Vere must do something that he instinctually interprets as morally wrong—condemning an innocent soul. Being a good captain requires him to be a bad friend to Billy, just as being a good friend to Billy would require him to be a bad captain. In presenting Vere's dilemma, the narrator introduces a lengthy discussion about the famous mutiny at Nore. The narrator shows that most of the participants in the mutiny ultimately redeem themselves in the momentous victory at Trafalgar, where they display true patriotism. The narrator's point seems to be that the impulses of individuals are generally good and beneficial to society as a whole. However, the outcome of the narrator's story is more ominous. Although the British war machine greatly benefits from the individual enthusiasm and patriotism of its sailors, the more powerful the navy becomes, the more it is able to squelch individualism. In fact, the harsh legislation of the Mutiny Act is passed to suppress any further murmurings of dissent. Melville seems to suggest that ultimately, the individual's attempt to assert himself in the face of society will prove futile.

quotes on man and the natural world prt 3

Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile. (28.7) For the first time in Moby-Dick, but certainly not the last, Ahab's harsh exterior is softened a little bit by the influence of something as basic as the weather. Even though he's verging on completely crazy, he can still feel the subtle, beautiful powers of nature in simple things like the breeze and the sunlight. This is what makes Ahab different from Flask: both of them are prone to take the whale-hunt personally and get a little obsessed with vengeance, but for Flask, this aggressive attitude dulls his other senses, while Ahab remains perceptive and alive to small details. Unfortunately, even though Ahab can perceive beauty in the natural world, he'll eventually stop being able to take pleasure in it.

quotes on man and the natural world prt 2

Now something such an one was Claggart, in whom was the mania of an evil nature, not engendered by vicious training or corrupting books or licentious living, but born with him and innate, in short "a depravity according to nature." (11.11) From a narrative point of view, what is the difference between leaving Claggart's behavior unexplained and suggesting that his is "the mania of an evil nature"? How does it affect the way that we perceive and think of Claggart? Is there anything natural about this type of description? Remember that the narrator is only speculating on Claggart's nature, that none of the above is actual fact.

quotes on truth prt 3

Now to invent something touching the more private career of Claggart, something involving Billy Budd, of which something the latter should be wholly ignorant, some romantic incident implying that Claggart's knowledge of the young bluejacket began at some period anterior to catching sight of him on board the seventy-four - all this, not so difficult to do, might avail in a way more or less interesting to account for whatever of enigma may appear to lurk in the case. But in fact there was nothing of the sort. (11.2) Here the narrator is telling us the truth. He admits that, if he could give more back story on John Claggart, Claggart's actions might be more readily comprehensible. Yet he tells us, in all honesty, that such a background does not exist. Claggart, like Billy, is largely an "enigma." Try to find places where the narrator is not so straightforward about what he does and doesn't know. Is he consistently trying to give us a true relation of events or is he constantly putting his own spin on things?

Theme of race

Of the three stories, none have a more explicit theme than "Benito Cereno." Published just a few years prior to the Civil War and in the midst of a fierce national debate over slavery, Melville must have been aware of the racial implications of his story was he was writing it in the early 1850s. While the story is based on an actual event, Melville embellishes the story greatly, adding many flourishes including Captain Delano's thoughts on blacks. There is little documentation on Melville's views on blacks or slavery. This leaves his stories, such as "Benito Cereno," frustratingly difficult to interpret. Some critics have pointed out that Melville had two experiences that would give him a unique perspective on slavery: he had served as a cabin boy on a whaling ship (a thankless job similar to slavery) and he was a captive of the Typee cannibals, so he has experience as a captive. He was also witness to the rituals and behavior of the Typee cannibals, which may have affected how he saw other races, especially "primitive" races. Since many slaves were taken directly from their African tribes, it is likely that Melville's experience may have affected his portrayal of the blacks in "Benito Cereno" as particularly ruthless and war-like, once their ruse had been exposed. Some critics have interpreted "Benito Cereno" as an expression of Melville's anxiety over the slavery issue. Regardless of his own opinion of blacks or slavery, he recognized the explosive nature of the slavery question in the United States and the violent conflict it would create.

quotes on morality and ethics prt 2

Of this the maritime chief of police the ship's corporals, so called, were the immediate subordinates, and compliant ones; and this, as is to be noted in some business departments ashore, almost to a degree inconsistent with moral volition. (8.7) In order to be a moral creature, you need to have some sort of volition. Is it possible, then, for "doing one's duty" to be a moral action? Separately, can Billy be a moral creature if he lacks as much volition as a normal man?

Benito Cereno Plot Summary

Off the coast of Chile on one gray day in 1799, the sky filled with shadows "foreshadowing deeper shadows to come", captain Amasa Delano of the Bachelor's Delight, a Massachusetts sealer and trading ship, sees the Spanish vessel San Dominick in seeming distress. With some supplies he steps in his boat "The Rover" and boards the San Dominick, which carries a cargo of slaves, including women and children. He notes the figurehead, which is mostly concealed by a tarpaulin revealing only the inscription: "Follow your leaders and the fate of the slaves' master, Alexandro Aranda, who Cereno claims took fever aboard the ship and died. He sends his men back to bring more food and water, and stays aboard in the company of its Spanish captain, Don Benito Cereno and his Senegalese servant Babo who never leaves him alone. Don Benito's timidness and the wild behavior of the slaves confuse Delano. The San Dominick, Cereno informs him, is on a voyage from Buenos Aires to Lima with three hundred slaves and a crew of fifty Spaniards, but storms and diseases have decimated the crew. Cereno is constantly attended to by his personal slave, Babo, whom Cereno keeps in close company even when Delano suggests that Babo leave the two in private to discuss matters that are clearly being avoided. Delano, however, does not bother Cereno to ask questions about the odd superficiality of their conversation Delano, who appreciates Babo's faithful care for his master, offers to help out by letting three of his own men assist in bringing the ship to Concepcion. What disturbs Delano are incidents he observes among the hatchet polishers, oakum pickers, such as when a black boy stabs a white one. Apparently Cereno does not care about this behavior, not even when Atufal, a regal-looking slave appears in chains but still refusing to humble himself. The whispering between Cereno and Babo makes Delano feel uncomfortable. Gradually his suspicions increase, as he notes Cereno's sudden waves of dizziness and anxiety, the crew's awkward movements and whisperings, and the unusual interaction of the slaves and the whites. Yet Delano answers Cereno's questions about the crew, cargo, and arms aboard the Bachelor's Delight without reserve, reasoning that the innocent are protected by the truth. When The Rover arrives with the supplies, Delano sends her back for more water while he continuous to observe curious incidents. Babo reminds Cereno that it's time for his shave. "Most negroes are natural valets and hairdressers; taking to the comb and brush congenially as to the castinets, and flourishing them apparently with equal satisfaction", springing from "the docility arising from the unaspiring contentment of a limited mind". Babo suggests that Delano joins them in the cuddy to continue the conversation with Cereno, and Delano witnesses the shaving with an appreciative eye for Babo's graceful skill as a barber and a hairdresser. Babo first searches "for the sharpest" razor, and Cereno "nervously shuddered" at the "sight of gleaming steel". Delano himself, for a brief moment, cannot resist "the vagary, that in the black he saw a headsman, and in the white, a man at the block." Cereno is nervously shaking, and just when Delano curiously asks him how he could have spent over two months crossing a distance Delano himself would have sailed within a few days, then, whether caused by a sudden wave on the sea, or "a momentary unsteadiness of the servant's hand; however it was, just then the razor drew blood", and immediately "the black barber drew back his steel". Delano precedes the two out of the cuddy and walks to the mainmast, where Babo joins him, complaining that Cereno cut his cheek in reproach for his carelessness, while Cereno's own shaking caused the cut. Delano feels that slavery fosters ugly passions, and invites Cereno for coffee aboard the Bachelor's Delight, which Cereno declines, offending Delano, who is also increasingly irritated by the lack of opportunity to have a private conversation without Babo within hearing distance. When the American steps into The Rover and takes off, "Don Benito sprang over the bulwarks, falling at the feet of Captain Delano". Three Spanish sailors dive after him, just as Babo, "dagger in his hand", and a dark avalanche of slaves. Delano fears Babo wants to attack him, but the black loses the dagger when he falls into the boat. With a second dagger Babo continues his attack and now his purpose is revealed: "Not Captain Delano, but Don Benito, the black, leaping into the boat, had intended to stab." Delano's men prevent him from achieving his purpose. Delano, "now with the scales dropped from his eyes", realizes that a slave revolt has been going on aboard the San Dominick. He sees the remaining sailors taking flight into the masts to escape the "flourishing hatchets and knives" of the blacks who are after them. The canvas falls off the ship's figurehead, revealing the strung-up skeleton of Alexandro Aranda. Delano secures Babo, and his men under command of his chief mate attack the Spanish ship to claim booty by defeating the revolting slaves. Eventually, legal depositions taken at Lima explain the matter. Instead of storm and epidemics, a bloody slave revolt under Babo's command caused the mortalities among the crew, including Aranda. When Delano approached, the freed slaves set up the delusion that the surviving whites were still in charge. Delano asks the sad Benito: "'you are saved; what has cast such a shadow upon you?'" To which Cereno replies: "'The negro.'" Some months after the trial Babo is executed, never saying a word to defend himself: his body was burned but his head, "fixed on a pole in the Plaza, met, unabashed, the gaze of the whites", and looked in the direction of St. Bartholomew's church, where "the recovered bones of Aranda" lay, and further across the bridge "towards the monastery on Mount Agonia without: where, three months after being dismissed by the court, Benito Cereno, borne on the bier, did, indeed, follow his leader."

MD Plot Summary prt 6

On the third day of the chase, Ahab sights Moby Dick at noon, and sharks appear, as well. Ahab lowers his boat for a final time, leaving Starbuck again on board. Moby Dick breaches and destroys two boats. Fedallah's corpse, still entangled in the fouled lines, is lashed to the whale's back, so Moby Dick turns out to be the hearse Fedallah prophesied. "Possessed by all the fallen angels", Ahab plants his harpoon in the whale's flank. Moby Dick smites the whaleboat, tossing its men into the sea. Only Ishmael survives. The whale now fatally attacks the Pequod. Ahab then realizes that the destroyed ship is the hearse made of American wood in Fedallah's prophesy. The whale returns to Ahab, who stabs at him again. The line loops around Ahab's neck, and as the stricken whale swims away, the captain is drawn with him out of sight. Queequeg's coffin comes to the surface, the only thing to escape the vortex when Pequod sank. For an entire day, Ishmael floats on it, and then the Rachel, still looking for its lost seamen, rescues him.

quotes on power prt 3

On their way thither, the two captains were preceded by the mulatto, who turning round as he advanced, with continual smiles and bows, ushered them on [...] (78.241) Delano seems totally disarmed by all the smiling and bowing. Little does he know that he's just a sucker for people treating him like a powerful man.

theme of morality & ethics

Once you read "Bartleby the Scrivener," you'll never really shake it off - trust us on this one. We here at Shmoop first read it back in high school, and it's still lingering uncomfortably in the backs of our minds. Why, you ask? Well...hmm, we respond. We're not sure. It's hard to say what it is that makes "Bartleby" so compelling, but whatever it is definitely relates to the problematic issue of morality and personal responsibility. In this story, Melville asks us to consider how far our moral duties extend - that is to say, how responsible are we for our fellow human beings? That's not a question easily answered.

theme of choices

One of the things that make us human is our ability to make complex choices, even about the simplest of things. We don't always just do what we "should" do, and sometimes our most unconventional decisions lead to the greatest outcomes; after all, the choices we make in life create the unique individuals we all become. However, in "Bartleby the Scrivener," Herman Melville asks us to question what governs the choices we make - and how our capacity for decision making and independent thought, which is often so wonderful, can sometimes be a dangerous thing...with potentially fatal consequences.

Transatlantic contrasts

One other strain in criticism is to read in the story an almost Jamesian moral with Delano as the American who, "confronted with evil in unescapable form, wanted only to turn over a new leaf, to deny and to forget the lesson he ought to have learned."[54] Such an American survives "by being less than fully human," while Europeans are "broken by the weight of their knowledge of and complicity in human evil."[55] Literary historian Richard Gray calls the novella an interrogation of "the American optimism of its narrator [sic] and the European pessimism of its protagonist, Cereno, under the shadow of slavery."[56] Delano represents a version of New England innocence which has also been read as strategy to ensure colonial power over both Spain and Africans in the "New World".[57]

quotes on morality & ethics prt 2

Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary [...] if I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby, to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience. (35) Oh, interesting...the "moral" impulse we recognize here in the Narrator turns out to have a slightly sordid edge of self-serving satisfaction. We have to wonder how much of "morality" is actually motivated by this kind of desire.

MD Plot Summary prt2

Southeast of the Cape of Good Hope, the Pequod makes the first of nine sea-encounters, or "gams", with other ships: Ahab hails the Goney (Albatross) to ask whether they have seen the White Whale, but the trumpet through which her captain tries to speak falls into the sea before he can answer. Ishmael explains that because of Ahab's absorption with Moby Dick, he sails on without the customary "gam", which defines as a "social meeting of two (or more) Whale-ships", in which the two captains remain on one ship and the chief mates on the other. In the second gam off the Cape of Good Hope, with the Town-Ho, a Nantucket whaler, the concealed story of a "judgment of God" is revealed, but only to the crew: a defiant sailor who struck an oppressive officer is flogged, and when that officer led the chase for Moby Dick, he fell from the boat and was killed by the whale. Ishmael digresses on pictures of whales, brit (microscopic sea creatures on which whales feed), squid and — after four boats lowered in vain because Daggoo mistook a giant squid for the white whale — whale-lines. The next day, in the Indian Ocean, Stubb kills a sperm whale, and that night Fleece, the Pequod's black cook, prepares him a rare whale steak. Fleece delivers a sermon to the sharks that fight each other to feast on the whale's carcass, tied to the ship, saying that their nature is to be voracious, but they must overcome it. The whale is prepared, beheaded, and barrels of oil are tried out. Standing at the head of the whale, Ahab begs it to speak of the depths of the sea. The Pequod next encounters the Jeroboam, which not only lost its chief mate to Moby Dick, but also is now plagued by an epidemic. The whale carcass still lies in the water. Queequeg mounts it, tied to Ishmael's belt by a monkey-rope as if they were Siamese twins. Stubb and Flask kill a right whale whose head is fastened to a yardarm opposite the sperm whale's head. Ishmael compares the two heads in a philosophical way: the right whale is Lockean, stoic, and the sperm whale as Kantean, platonic. Tashtego cuts into the head of the sperm whale and retrieves buckets of oil. He falls into the head, and the head falls off the yardarm into the sea. Queequeg dives after him and frees his mate with his sword.

quotes on man and the natural world prt 2

Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs; and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. (26.3) Melville shows us a variety of ways that men situate themselves in relation to the natural world by describing the way that each of the mates on the Pequod thinks about whaling. Starbuck, the first mate and moral touchstone of the crew, considers whaling something that you do in order to make a living. He's brave when he needs to be to get his work done, but he doesn't cherish any special vendetta against the whales. He doesn't take pleasure in killing, but he also doesn't make any fuss about killing when he needs to. Whaling is "just a job" for Starbuck. "Moderate" is the word that best describes his attitude.

quotes on man and the natural world

Still New Bedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough; but not like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country? Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. (6.5-6) Moby-Dick is all about the way that men redistribute the riches of the natural world to suit themselves. In order to make the barren landscape of New Bedford habitable and comfortable, whalemen go out and slaughter the giants of the sea. It's important to notice that the whalemen, and men in general, aren't able to create new wealth out of nothing. All they can do is take nature's bounty from one place and harvest it in order to transform life somewhere else.

MD Plot Summary prt 3

The Pequod next gams with the Jungfrau from Bremen. Both ships sight whales simultaneously, with the Pequod winning the contest. The three harpooneers dart their harpoons, and Flask delivers the mortal strike with a lance. The carcass sinks, and Queequeg barely manages to escape. The Pequod's next gam is with the French whaler Bouton de Rose, whose crew is ignorant of the ambergris in the head of the diseased whale in their possession. Stubb talks them out of it, but Ahab orders him away. Days later, an encounter with a harpooned whale prompts Pip, a little black cabin-boy from Alabama, to jump out of his whale boat. The whale must be cut loose, because the line has Pip so entangled in it. Furious, Stubb orders Pip to stay in the whale boat, but Pip later jumps again, and is left alone in the immense sea and has gone insane by the time he is picked up. Cooled sperm oil congeals and must be squeezed back into liquid state; blubber is boiled in the try-pots on deck; the warm oil is decanted into casks, and then stowed in the ship. After the operation, the decks are scrubbed. The coin hammered to the main mast shows three Andes summits, one with a flame, one with a tower, and one a crowing cock. Ahab stops to look at the doubloon and interprets the coin as signs of his firmness, volcanic energy, and victory; Starbuck takes the high peaks as evidence of the Trinity; Stubb focuses on the zodiacal arch over the mountains; and Flask sees nothing of any symbolic value at all. The Manxman mutters in front of the mast, and Pip declines the verb "look". The Pequod next gams with the Samuel Enderby of London, captained by Boomer, a down-to-earth fellow who lost his right arm to Moby Dick. Nevertheless, he carries no ill will toward the whale, which he regards not as malicious, but as awkward. Ahab puts an end to the gam by rushing back to his ship. The narrator now discusses the subjects of 1) whalers supply; 2) a glen in Tranque in the Arsacides islands full of carved whale bones, fossil whales, whale skeleton measurements; 3) the chance that the magnitude of the whale will diminish and that the leviathan might perish.

quotes on isolation prt 3

The bond of common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby were sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces I had seen that day, in gala trim, swanlike sailing down the Mississippi of Broadway; and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought to myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay, but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. (52) The Narrator sadly ponders Bartleby's isolation, and keenly observes that since happy people want to be together and miserable ones keep themselves apart, we assume that everyone is happy, which is, as he observes, a pretty faulty logic.

God and Religion

The conflict between the individual and nature brings into play the theme of religion and God's role in the natural world. The critic Harold Bloom has named Ahab "one of the fictive founders of what should be called the American Religion," and although Melville wrote his novel while living in the civilized Berkshires, near the eastern U.S. seaboard, and set it on the open seas, the reader must not forget that America at that time had moved westward. To Ahab it does not matter if the white whale is "agent" or "principle." He will fight against fate, rather than resign himself to a divine providence. Father Mapple, who gives a sermon near the beginning of the novel, and, to a lesser extent, Starbuck both symbolize the conventional and contemporary religious attitudes of nineteenth-century Protestantism. Ahab's defiance of these is neither romantic nor atheistic but founded on a tragic sense of heroic and unavoidable duty.

theme of man and the natural world

The idea of naturalism pervades Billy Budd. In the novel, it is closely linked with the narrator's inability to explain the behavior of two of his main characters: John Claggart and Billy Budd. The result of this inability is that there is quite a lot of philosophizing about what it means to be natural, to be connected with nature. Yet, unreliable as the narrator is, things begin to get confusing. With all of his speculation, it is unclear whether or not he is making the characters seem more natural or less, whether or not he really believes in naturalism or is simply hiding behind it because he can't explain his characters' motivations.

Plot summary of Bartleby

The narrator, an elderly, unnamed Manhattan lawyer with a comfortable business, already employs two scriveners to copy legal documents by hand, Nippers and Turkey. An increase in business leads him to advertise for a third, and he hires the forlorn-looking Bartleby in the hope that his calmness will soothe the irascible temperaments of the other two. At first, Bartleby produces a large volume of high-quality work. But one day, when asked to help proofread a document, Bartleby answers with what soon becomes his perpetual response to every request—"I would prefer not to." To the dismay of the lawyer and to the irritation of the other employees, Bartleby performs fewer and fewer tasks, and eventually none. The narrator makes several futile attempts to reason with him and to learn something about him; and when he stops by the office unexpectedly, he discovers that Bartleby has started living there. Tension builds as business associates wonder why Bartleby is always there. Sensing the threat to his reputation but emotionally unable to evict Bartleby, the narrator moves his business out. Soon the new tenants come to ask for help: Bartleby still will not leave—he now sits on the stairs all day and sleeps in the building's doorway. The narrator visits him and attempts to reason with him, and surprises even himself by inviting Bartleby to come live with him. But Bartleby "would prefer not to." Later the narrator returns to find that Bartleby has been forcibly removed and imprisoned in the Tombs. The narrator visits him. Finding Bartleby glummer than usual, he bribes a turnkey to make sure Bartleby gets enough food. But when he returns a few days later Bartleby has died of starvation, having preferred not to eat. Some time afterward, the narrator hears a rumor that Bartleby had worked in a dead letter office, and reflects that dead letters would have made anyone of Bartleby's temperament sink into an even darker gloom. The story closes with the narrator's resigned and pained sigh, "Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!"

MD Plot Summary prt 1

The narrator, who calls himself Ishmael, travels from Manhattan Island to New Bedford with plans to sign up for a whaling voyage. The inn he arrives at is so crowded he must share a bed with the tattooed Polynesian Queequeg, a harpooneer whose father was king of the (fictional) island of Rokovoko. The next morning, Ishmael and Queequeg attend Father Mapple's sermon on Jonah, then head for Nantucket. Ishmael signs up with the Quaker ship-owners Bildad and Peleg for a voyage on their whaler Pequod. Peleg describes Captain Ahab: "He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man" who nevertheless "has his humanities". They hire Queequeg the following morning. A man named Elijah prophesies a dire fate should Ishmael and Queequeg join Ahab. While provisions are loaded, shadowy figures board the ship. On a cold Christmas Day, the Pequod leaves the harbor. Ishmael discusses cetology (the zoological classification and natural history of the whale), and describe the crew members. The chief mate is 30-year-old Starbuck, a Nantucket Quaker with a realist mentality, whose harpooneer is Queequeg; second mate is Stubb, from Cape Cod, happy-go-lucky and cheerful, whose harpooneer is Tashtego, a proud, pure-blooded Indian from Gay Head, and the third mate is Flask, from Martha's Vineyard, short, stout, whose harpooneer is Daggoo, a tall African, now a resident of Nantucket. When Ahab finally appears on the quarterdeck, he announces he is out for revenge on the white whale which took one leg from the knee down and left him with a prosthesis fashioned from a whale's jawbone. Ahab will give the first man to sight Moby Dick a doubloon, a gold coin, which he nails to the mast. Starbuck objects that he has not come for vengeance but for profit. Ahab's purpose exercises a mysterious spell on Ishmael: "Ahab's quenchless feud seemed mine". Instead of rounding Cape Horn, Ahab heads for the equatorial Pacific Ocean via southern Africa. One afternoon, as Ishmael and Queequeg are weaving a mat — "its warp seemed necessity, his hand free will, and Queequeg's sword chance" — Tashtego sights a sperm whale. Immediately, five hidden figures appear whom Ahab has brought as his own boat crew. Their leader, Fedallah, a Parsee, is Ahab's harpooneer. The pursuit is unsuccessful.

Plot Summary of Billy Budd

The plot follows Billy Budd, a seaman impressed into service aboard HMS Bellipotent in the year 1797, when the British Royal Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by the Revolutionary French Republic's military ambitions. He is impressed from another ship, The Rights of Man (named after the book by Thomas Paine). As his former ship moves off, Budd shouts, "Good-by to you too, old Rights-of-Man." Billy, a foundling, has an openness and natural charisma that makes him popular with the crew. He arouses the antagonism of the ship's Master-at-arms, John Claggart. Claggart, while not unattractive, seemed somehow "defective or abnormal in the constitution," possessing a "natural depravity." Envy was Claggart's explicitly stated emotion toward Budd, foremost because of his "significant personal beauty," and also for his innocence and general popularity. (Melville further opines envy is "universally felt to be more shameful than even felonious crime.") This leads Claggart to falsely charge Billy with conspiracy to mutiny. When the Captain, the Hon. Edward Fairfax "Starry" Vere, is presented with Claggart's charges, he summons Claggart and Billy to his cabin for a private meeting. Claggart makes his case and Billy, astounded, is unable to respond, due to a stutter which grows more severe with intense emotion. He strikes his accuser to the forehead and the blow is fatal. The last known image of the author, taken in 1885. Vere convenes a drumhead court-martial. He acts as convening authority, prosecutor, defense counsel and sole witness (except for Billy). He intervenes in the deliberations of the court-martial panel to persuade them to convict Billy, despite their and his belief in Billy's moral innocence. (Vere says in the moments following Claggart's death, "Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!") Vere claims to be following the letter of the Mutiny Act and the Articles of War. Although Vere and the other officers do not believe Claggart's charge of conspiracy and think Billy justified in his response, they find that their own opinions matter little. The martial law in effect states that during wartime the blow itself, fatal or not, is a capital crime. The court-martial convicts Billy following Vere's argument that any appearance of weakness in the officers and failure to enforce discipline could stir more mutiny throughout the British fleet. Condemned to be hanged the morning after his attack on Claggart, Billy before his execution says, "God bless Captain Vere!" His words were repeated by the gathered crew in a "resonant and sympathetic echo."CH 26 The novel closes with three chapters that present ambiguity: Chapter 29 describes the death of Captain Vere. In a naval action against the French ship, Athée (the Atheist), Captain Vere is mortally wounded. His last words are "Billy Budd, Billy Budd." Chapter 30 presents an extract from an official naval gazette purporting to give the facts of the fates of John Claggart and Billy Budd aboard HMS Bellipotent — but the "facts" offered turn the facts that the reader learned from the story upside down. The gazette article described Budd as a conspiring mutineer likely of foreign birth and mysterious antecedents who, when confronted by John Claggart, the master-at-arms loyally enforcing the law, stabs Claggart and kills him. The gazette concludes that the crime and weapon used suggest a foreign birth and subversive character; it reports that the mutineer was executed and nothing is amiss aboard HMS Bellipotent. Chapter 31 reprints a cheaply printed ballad written by one of Billy's shipmates as an elegy. The adult, experienced man represented in the poem is not the innocent youth portrayed in the preceding chapters.

Individual vs. Nature

The voyage of the Pequod is no straightforward, commercially inspired whaling voyage. The reader knows this as soon as Ishmael registers as a member of the crew and receives, at secondhand, warnings of the captain's state of mind. Ahab, intent on seeking revenge on the whale who has maimed him, is presented as a daring and creative individual, pitted against the full forces of nature. In developing the theme of the individual (Ahab) versus Nature (symbolized by Moby-Dick), Melville explores the attributes of natural forces. Are they ruled by chance, neutral occurrences that affect human characters arbitrarily? Or do they possess some form of elementary will that makes them capable of using whatever power is at their disposal?

quotes on truth

The will to it and the sinister dexterity were alike wanting. To deal in double meanings and insinuations of any sort was quite foreign to his nature. (1.15) Here, the narrator seems to be trying to paint a portrait of Billy as a simple, honest creature. But does not seeing the possibility of double meanings really mean that Billy is honest? Is he honest or just sincere? What's the difference?

quotes on slavery prt 5

There's naked nature, now, pure tenderness and love, thought Captain Delano, well pleased. (63.152) Captain Delano makes lots of insulting generalizations about the slaves on the San Dominick, mainly reflecting his own desire to fit them into categories. It's racism, plain and simple.

quotes on power prt 4

They were almost overborne, when, rallying themselves into a squad as one man, with a huzzah they sprang inboard, where, entangled, they involuntarily separated again. (91.333) Before their final loss, the slaves band together again. Their power comes from the group.

quotes on duty prt 2

To argue his order to him would be insolence. To resist him would be mutiny. (20.2) Duty, by its very nature, is hierarchical. You have to be dutiful to something, and likely that something is in a more powerful position than you are. Isn't there something wrong with the concept of duty, though, when a man can't express his own thoughts and common sense for fear of what a higher-up will tell him? Does the surgeon have a duty to express his feelings that the captain is mad? If so, can you think of a way that he could carry out this duty?

quotes on foreignness and the other prt 3

True, Billy himself freely referred to his death as a thing close at hand; but it was something in the way that children will refer to death in general, who yet among their other sports will play a funeral with hearse and mourners. (24.5) Is the way that adults think of death really that different from how children think of death? Can one think of death as the ultimate other, the thing that it is absolutely impossible to imagine or relate to? Might the narrator be trying to undermine Billy's strength in the face of death by relating him to a child?

quotes on Revenge

Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous." "Hark ye yet again - the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event - in the living act, the undoubted deed - there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me." (36.38-39) Both parts of this dialogue contain some of the most important keys to unlocking the theme of revenge in Moby-Dick. Starbuck claim that trying to take revenge on a simple animal, which isn't capable of hatred or cruelty, is not just stupid—it's sinful. In response, Ahab claims that the entire world has an allegorical or neo-Platonic aspect: all things represent other things and everything happens for a purpose. Much of the tension in the novel relates to this fundamental difference in interpretation: Starbuck sees the natural world as simply there, doing its thing, and Ahab sees it as the tangible representation of "some unknown but still reasoning thing." At bottom, the issue is whether or not Moby Dick attacked Ahab with "malice aforethought," as those legal types say.

theme of isolation

We'll just put this out there: Bartleby is a guy that lives alone in his workplace. He sleeps, eats, shaves, and hangs out in his cubicle. He has no friends. He has no family. He doesn't even have a dog. The only people he ever sees are his coworkers, and he basically refuses all interaction with them. Do you think he's isolated? Heck, yeah! This short story explores the nature of Bartleby's extreme isolation, and of its impact on the world around him, and forces readers to ask themselves how much of humanity is contained in our communal nature.

theme of rules and order

Whether or not we realize it, our everyday lives are dictated by a complex network of rules and regulations. For the most part, even the extremely independent-minded among us still do the things we're supposed to - you know, we follow traffic signals, pay for things at stores, go to work or school, the usual stuff. What, though, would happen if one (or all!) of us just stopped following the rules and started simply doing what we "prefer" to do? Could civilization still function? You'll have to read "Bartleby the Scrivener" to try and find out.

quotes on foreignness and the other prt 2

Yes, Billy Budd was a foundling, a presumable by-blow, and, evidently, no ignoble one. Noble descent was as evident in him as in a blood horse. (2.9) How does Billy's apparent nobleness of birth set him apart from the other men? Do you believe that one can detect nobleness of birth even if a man is only an orphan? Why is Billy so often compared to animals, horses in particular?

quotes on power prt 2

[...] "now, master," and the steel glanced nigh his throat. (75.222) Melville is all about the juxtaposition of power and weakness. Babo calling Cereno "master" is pretty rich, especially when he's wielding a blade.

quotes on supernatural prt 2

[...] as the bleached hull swung round towards the open ocean, death for the figurehead, in a human skeleton, chalky comment on the chalked words below, FOLLOW YOUR LEADER. (88.320) The worst part of this revealing of Aranda's skeleton is its suddenness. Seems like an awfully strange coincidence that it would happen at the exact moment Cereno escapes...

quotes on slavery prt 3

[...] but poor Babo here, in his own land, was only a poor slave; a black man's slave was Babo's, who now is the white's. (53.89) There's a major class difference between Babo and Atufal, but Babo seems to be more in power aboard the San Dominick. Why do you think this is?

quotes on cunning and cleverness

[...] the black with one arm still encircled his master, at the same time keeping his eye fixed on his face, as if to watch for the first sign of restoration, or relapse, as the event might prove. (46.35) Babo's smart to keep such close tabs on Cereno. He's got the perfect excuse to watch him like a hawk.

quotes on man and the natural world prt 4 VERY IMPORTANT!!!

[L]ulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like Wickliff's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over. (35.10) In this mystical scene, Ishmael feels himself dissolving into the natural world, losing track of the boundary between the self and the world in a very "Zen" way. The key word here, which Melville uses in the passage, is "Pantheistic." Pantheism is the belief that God and the world are the same thing. God's not just in the world, but absolutely equivalent to it, and everything that exists is divine. This means that the individual believer, who is also a part of the world, is a divine part of God, as well. It's interesting to contrast the ways Ishmael feels himself to be united to all of creation and to God at this transcendent moment. It reminds us of the central tenets of American Romanticism and Transcendentalism in the mid-nineteenth century—especially of the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It also reminds us how different Ishmael is from Ahab, Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask.

quotes on choices prt 3

[Narrator:] "The time has come; you must quit this place; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must go." "I would prefer not," [Bartleby] replied, with his back still towards me. "You must." He remained silent. (76-77) It's pretty clear from this interaction (and all those previous) that Bartleby's choices are not governed by anything but himself, even external force.

quotes on morality & ethics prt 3

up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it. (56) The Narrator, perhaps in some bid to excuse his own inability to help Bartleby, tries here to convince us that perhaps morality and moral responsibility only stretch so far - and when it's obvious that there's nothing to be done, we might as well give up trying to help. Hmm...