On The Phenomenon Of Death In Moby-Dick

Herman Melville has been generally recognized as one of the greatest writers in the 19^th-century American literature history, whose works include fictions, poems and essays. As an important writer, Melville failed to win due respect from his contemporaries until the"Melville revival"in the early 20th century, since then his position as a literary giant has been gradually secured with the intensifying critical researches on him and his works.Essays and works written on this great novel are large in number and various in focuses, but few of them have paid attention to the phenomenon of death pervasive in Moby-Dick. This thesis adopts the method of textual analysis to carry out a comprehensive and systematic study of the phenomenon of death in Moby-Dick from three perspectives. Chapter one is an analysis of Melville's philosophical thoughts over the concept of death. By the roles of Ishmael and others, Melville gave his definition of death, his guesses of the after-world and the simulative experience of death, and started a challenge to death. Chapter two explores the sinking of the Pequod as the major death event from three angles. The death of the crew is a human tragedy caused by Ahab and his men themselves, a natural tragedy reflecting the long-lasting fight between man and nature, and a religious tragedy showing man's shaking faith in God. Chapter three serves as a study of the phenomenon of death from the angle of artistic skills. Foreshadowing makes up a dark prophecy of the pathetic ending. The sharp contrast between death and life makes clearer the human impotence in front of his mortal fate, and the common use of symbols in various forms creates a white terror that runs throughout the whole story.The value of this thesis lies in the profound meanings it discovers behind the phenomenon of death of the novel, i.e. Melville's view of the matter of life and death, his self-conflicting thinking over human spiritual world, man-nature relationship and man-God relationship as well as his superb application of literary techniques. Such meanings are helpful not only to a better understanding of Moby-Dick, but to related researches on Melville and his other works as well.