Write your abstract here.As with many of the great literary monuments of thenineteenth century, Moby Dick requires much patience
from its reader if theyare to reap its generous rewards. At times this novel can be best described asa ‘page-turner’, where the pace of the action is so fast that is almostimpossible to put down, but in addition to being an extremely exciting readMoby Dick also inspires the kind of philosophical reverie in you that will makeyou forget that you are holding a book in your hands, and will leave you wonderingjust how long you have been sitting in your armchair meditating upon the natureof reality. The power that the human imagination has to appropriate the worldfor meaning emerges as one of the central themes of this novel, and as anoutstanding work of the human imagination Moby Dick attests to this power.Is Moby Dick merely the story of an angry sea captain who ishell-bent on exacting
revenge upon the whale responsible for taking his leg,which he believes to be the earthly manifestation of a malevolent divine force?The answer is no – it is so much more than a tale of revenge. Ahab’s questillustrates the downfall of a man who is motivated by the desire for revenge,but who operates under the pretence of being a man who is motivated by thedesire to pierce through the transient world as it appears to our senses andarrive at the full presence of Being that lies behind it. What is beingquestioned here is the motivation of human beings in their quests forknowledge.We cannot summarize Moby Dick simply by giving an account ofAhab’s quest, since this would leave out the narrator of the story and hisother – Ishmael and Queequeg , who both embark upon journeys of their own,which take them to the furthest limits of possible human experience and leavethem hanging on the edge of the abyss of
consciousness. Of course the reader,along with Ishmael, does not plunge into this abyss as Ahab does at the end ofthe novel. As Ahab is dragged down by the whale into a whirlpool, Ishmaelclings to the symbol that gives him solace – a coffin floating on the water. Ishmael,unlike Ahab, is sincere in his quest for truth. Yet he fears, like many of us,that beyond the limits of human experience is not the full presence of Being,but a horrifying Nothingness, which keeps us clinging to the symbols by whichour consciousness has appropriated the world – symbols which promise todisclose to us, whilst simultaneously keeping us at bay from that which mightlie beyond them.No other novel written in the English language has dealtwith such verve and enthusiasm the problems that have taxed perplexedphilosophers from Plato to Kant, whilst still maintaining a high level ofsophistication. If you have ever speculated about world that lies outside ofhuman consciousness, a world that is beyond which a human eye can see, orbeyond the range of that which a human ear can hear, then do not speculatealone. Join Ishmael, Queequeg and Ahab in one of the greatest novels ever to bewritten.