Student+Notes-Archetypes


 * Arguement**


 * Argument**: The purpose for writing this novel was in order to represent the ongoing events in the United States in the 1850s. The US was just beginning to prosper and become a strong and prominent nation. Melville used his various characters and archetypes in Moby Dick to convey his message/warning to the American people.

For example, Ishmael represented the potential of the US during the time, because he survives and he is the only one that doesn’t get sucked into the destructive mentality on the whaling ship. Ahab represents the destruction that could become of the United States if they let it all go to their heads and “got too big for the britches” so to speak. This is just a brief example of his use of characters and archetypes
 * Support Evidence**:


 * SCRIPT**

Characters

Ahab; Captain Gardiner; Father Maple-Hiranya

Narrator-Shannon

Ishmael-Chelsea

Moby Dick/ Pip/Captain Peleg-Jackie

The First Scene-Ishmael Meets Queequeg

Narrator- The story begins with a young man by the name of Ishmael.

Ishmael- Call me Ishmael.

Narrator- Young Ishmael is about to embark on a journey in the place of a ship called the Pequod but the ship wasn’t set to leave for another couple of days, so Ishmael decided to spend the night at an Inn. Unfortunately, the inn has no vacancies, so Ishmael has to share a room with a foreign man, he doesn’t even know.

Inn Keeper: Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of skrimshander. I sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a room, received for answer that his house was full - not a bed unoccupied. "But avast," he added, tapping his forehead, "you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye?

Narrator: Because Ishmael had no choice in the matter, and desperately needed a bed for the night, he headed up to the room where he would share a bed with the mysterious, cannibal harpooner. When Queequeg arrived, Ishmael was terrified.

Ishmael: Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of this head-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicable in him.

Narrator: Fortunately, Ishmael discovered that Queequeg was a rather pleasant man upon meeting him, and attended church with him the very next morning.

Narrator: At the sailor’s church, Father Maple delivered an excellent sermon about Jonah and the Whale, and the morals it teaches.

Father Maple: 'Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters -- four yarns -- is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sea line sound! What a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! 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.

Narrator: After church, Ishmael and Queequeg were able to secure jobs on a whaling ship called the Pequod. Once the friends board the ship and the journey begins, they meet the members of the crew, including the legless Captain Ahab, who seems to be obsessed with killing Moby Dick someday. They also learn a lot about the art of whaling. Ishmael especially finds the science of whales or, Cetology fascinating.

Ishmael: No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled Cetology.

Narrator: Ishmael studied the dimensions of a whale’s body, and even tattooed them on his arm so as not to forget them. After all of his studying about whales, he came to a conclusion about the whale’s status in the ocean.

Ishmael: Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.

Narrator: After the Pequod has been on its journey for quite a while, Ishmael began to realize that the main goal of the Captain, and the journey was to find and kill Moby Dick, the great white whale. Along with this realization, Captain Ahab shocked his existing crew by revealing that he had stowed away a bunch of other crew members. The most notable member of the new crew was a very strange Eastern Profit named Fedallah.

Ishmael: Whence he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab's peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort of a half- hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even authority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot sustain indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent -- those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though, according to genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane amours.

Narrator: And so, the Pequod and its’ crew continued on its now dreaded quest to hunt down Moby Dick. Along the way, they attempted to capture whales, to supply their ship with needed supplies. Unfortunately, during one of the lowering of the harpooning boat, poor young Pip, the cabin boy, fell into the sea. He was rescued eventually, but his lengthy wait in the terrifying seas changed him permanently.

Ishmael: The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul…. therefore his shipmates called him mad.

Narrator: After Pip changed, he became very close to Captain Ahab, and became useless to the rest of the crew. Queequeg became ill and had the carpenter on board the ship build him a coffin shaped box. He placed all of his possessions inside of it, and then climbed in.

Ishmael: But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon there seemed no need of the carpenter's box: and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was this; - at a critical moment, he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet, he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.

Narrator: At this point in our story, Captain Ahab has gone completely insane and the only thing that the crew does every day is chase after Moby Dick and kill him. On one of their wild goose chases, the Pequod comes in contact with another ship called, the Rachel. The two captains partake in a quick conversation.

Captain Ahab: "Hast seen the White Whale?"

Captain Gardiner: "Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?"

Captain Ahab: "Where was he? - not killed! - not killed!" cried Ahab, closely advancing. "How was it?" …………

Captain Gardiner: My boy, my own boy is among them. For God's sake - I beg, I conjure. For eight-and-forty hours let me charter your ship - I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it - if there be no other way - for eight-and-forty hours only - only that - you must, oh, you must, and you shall do this thing."

Captain Ahab: "Avast," cried Ahab - touch not a rope-yarn. Captain Gardiner, I will not do it. Even now I lose time. Good bye, good bye. God bless ye, man, and may I forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch, and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers: then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before."

Narrator: And so, to Captain Ahab’s crew utter shock, they ignored Captain Gardiner’s entreaties and continued on their quest for Moby Dick.

Narrator: Thanks to the tip from Captain Gardiner, the Pequod was hot on Moby dick’s trail. Finally, after months of searching, the Pequod finally found Moby Dick. The fight between Ahab and the Great White whale was absolute madness! Unfortunately, Moby Dick triumphed over Ahab for a second time, and the Pequod met its doom.

Ishmael: As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea. From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead. smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume. Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

Narrator: Sadly, every member of the crew aboard the Pequod was killed that day, except for Ishmael. He survived by floating on Queequeg’s wooden coffin until he was saved.

Ishmael: And I only am escaped alone to tell thee. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.

Narrator: This my friends, is where the tragic story of Captain Ahab, his crew, and their adventures comes to an end.


 * ROUGH ANALYSIS NOTES**


 * Water**

Ishmael: The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul…. therefore his shipmates called him mad. Revolution.
 * Pip is baptized by the water in a negative way and is sucked into the crazy world of Captain Ahab. This world is the parallel to the negative world of the Industrial


 * Coffin**

Queequeg: But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon there seemed no need of the carpenter's box: and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was this; - at a critical moment, he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet, he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.
 * Queequeg fits himself in a coffin ready to die. After making the coffin, putting all of his possessions in it, he is “reborn” and decides that he will not die, he will live.

Ishmael: And I only am escaped alone to tell thee. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main.


 * Ishmael is the only member of the crew that isn’t sucked into the world of greed and obsession. This represents the good potential that Industrial America still has. The use of the coffin is again a symbol for rebirth.


 * Ahab**

Captain Ahab: "Hast seen the White Whale?" Captain Gardener: "Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?" Captain Ahab: "Where was he? - not killed! - not killed!" cried Ahab, closely advancing. "How was it?" …………

Captain Gardener: My boy, my own boy is among them. For God's sake - I beg, I conjure - here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had but icily received his petition. For eight-and-forty hours let me charter your ship - I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it - if there be no other way - for eight-and-forty hours only - only that - you must, oh, you must, and you shall do this thing." Captain Ahab: "Avast," cried Ahab - "touch not a rope-yarn"; then in a voice that prolongingly moulded every word - "Captain Gardiner, I will not do it. Even now I lose time. Good bye, good bye. God bless ye, man, and may I forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch, and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers: then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before."


 * Captain Ahab has become so far gone and obsessed with catching the whale that he doesn’t even have any regard for another human life. Not even a child’s.


 * Fear of New Cultures in 1850s in America**

Ishmael: Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of this head-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicable in him.


 * Profits**

Father Maple:  'Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters -- four yarns -- is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sealine sound! What a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! 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.

Fedallah:. Whence he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab's peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort of a half- hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even authority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot sustain indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent -- those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though, according to genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane amours.


 * Pequod**

Ishmael: As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea. From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead. smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume. Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.


 * Cetology**

Ishmael: "No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled Cetology," says Captain Scoresby, A. D. 1820.

(With help from Mr. Conlay) =)
 * OUR OWN BRAINWORK**


 * Archetypes**

Archetypes/Symbols: • Coffin: Rebirth, redemtion **YEP** • Water: Baptism **YEP** • Pequod: Death/Destruction **YEP** • Whaling/Cytology: a greater being- link to nature • Profits: consequences of actions **YEP** • Ahab: Dominations and revenge and how it is fruitless **YEP**

Whaling and the science cytology represented a new mythology and Moby Dick represented a greater being such as Poseidon that ruled the ocean

The profits: Fadallah, Iago, Queequeg represented that a bad consequence would come if they kept doing what they were doing.

Fadallah: was a profit, but he used his powers to try and dominate nature and to destroy it.

Queegueg: also was a profit but his pagan background made him respect nature and even live in harmony with it.

Ahab: only wanted to dominate nature and to destroy it for revenge. He didn’t survive in the end.

The coffin box: a new beginning, rebirth like baptism

Ishmael was the only one to survive because he wanted to understand nature, he respected it and didn’t want to just destroy it. In the end, he was thrown into the water to be reborn and survive.

The Pequod was symbol for destruction because it was led by Ahab. Its only purpose was to destroy nature. *not all whaling ships were like this. Just this one because Ahab was a psycho.

= Focus Questions: =


 * Define //archetypal criticism.//**

Archetypes are typical images, characters, narrative designs, themes, and other literary phenomena which are present in all literature, and so provide the basis for study of its interconnectedness. Critics of this theory claim that its proponents are examining literature according to a few monotonous patterns. Archetypal critics contend that literary greatness depends on themes and images shared with other literature rather than on the author’s originality.


 * What are some common Mythological and Biblical archetypes?**

"Clash of the Titans: tale of universal archetypes that speak to everyone. A tale that has remained unfailingly popular for thousands of years." – how can this story be classified to be found in Moby Dick? There’s a hero in this story, Perseus who thinks himself of no value until he comes to know that he is the son of Zeus and he has a mission. Ishmael thinks of himself as a normal man who through all his struggles survives while the rest of the crew dies. The Clash of the Titans go through the hero’s journey as well as Moby Dick. Greek mythology was used as a way to build up to the novel, Moby Dick. Well using the hero’s journey is how they used it.
 * What universal (mythological and Biblical) archetypes are found in //Moby Dick//?**


 * What is the link between the //Romantic// movement and the use of universal archetypes, especially mythological archetypes? (Note: consider the romantic movement both within Europe and especially the United States in the early 1800's)**


 * Compare the //Hero's Journey// plot structure with that of the novel's-what similarities and differences are there?**

-Birth – N/A Separation- when joining the ship, he is separated completely from society Call to Adventure – waking up with Quequeg Threshold Guardians- Inner voices telling him that something was not right Wise and Helpful Guide- Three shipmates: Starbuck, Stubb and Flask Refusal of the Call- doubts himself on the journey Hero Partners – Quequeg Mystical Insight – the profits Labyrinth and Rescue – Damsel in Distress – N/A Magical Item- N/A Hero Deeds and Dragonslayers – When Queequeg saved starbuck from drowning Dark road of Trials – Frustration for Ahab because he can’t find Moby The Hunt – Trying to find Moby Belly of the Beast – When Pip was in the sea for a whole day almost Mystical Marriage – When Ishmael and Queequeg became spiritually closer than ever Sacrifices and Betrayals – Ahab sacrificing his crew’s lives in the hunt for Moby Dick Sacred grove – The Pequod Hero’s return – Ishmael returns to write of his adventures and his philosophies Resurgence of Evil – It would be Ahab coming back after having his leg bitten off. Resurrection – Ahab’s first survival Monster Combat – Battle with the great white whale Enchanted Forests, animals – The ocean blue which holds many dark secrets in its depths Unmasking – The unmasking of Ahab’s true purposes of the voyage Atonement with father – N/A Descent and underworld – lost at sea, which is the worst torment or punishment Final Victory – Ishmael does survive the battle with the whale but does not view it as a victory Problems with credibility upon return – They find it hard to believe that a white whale capable of thinking with great efficiency.

http://www.jitterbug.com/origins/myth.html


 * Considering the novel within the mythological or Biblical archetypical structure, what seems to be Melville's purpose or purposes in writing this novel? (Remember: go beyond //simple thematic// exploration!)**