Moby-Dick and Melville's Anti-Slavery Allegory

ISBN-13: 9783319522661 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 234 str.

Brian Pellar; J. Hillis Miller

Opis

This book unfurls and examines the anti-slavery allegory at the subtextual core of Herman Melville s famed novel, Moby-Dick. Brian Pellar points to symbols and allusions in the novel such as the albinism of the famed whale, the Ship of State motif, Calhoun s cords, the equator, Jonah, Narcissus, St. Paul, and Thomas Hobbe s Leviathan. The work contextualizes these devices within a historical discussion of the Compromise of 1850 and subsequently strengthened Fugitive Slave Laws. Drawing on a rich variety of sources such as unpublished papers, letters, reviews, and family memorabilia, the chapters discuss the significance of these laws within Melville s own life. After clarifying the hidden allegory interconnecting black slaves and black whales, this book carefully sheds the layers of a hidden meaning that will be too convincing to ignore for future readings: Moby-Dick is ultimately a novel that is intimately connected with questions of race, slavery, and the state.
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Spis treści

Introduction.- 2 Melville’s Motivations.- 3 The Ship of State.- 4 Hemp and Calhoun’s “Cords”.- 5 Man as Whale.- 6. “This Afric Temple of the Whale”.- 7 The Equator.-8 “Who Ain’t a Slave?”.- 9 “The Log and the Line”.- 10 St. Paul.- 11“I Do Not Baptise Thee in Name”.- Moby-Dick and “Black Blood”.- 10  Moby Dick in Service.- Epilogue.

O autorze

Brian Pellar has authored four papers in Sino-Platonic Papers, a scholarly monographic series. After serving four years in the US Navy, he studied art, biology, and psychology, and ultimately English. He currently lives in Boston, MA.