Moby Dick: The Literary Fable Of Modern Ecological Crisis

Herman Melville is one of the most important novelists in the nineteenth century of America. As his masterpiece—Moby Dick tells a tragic story: all passengers on a whaling ship named 'Pequod' were buried at the sea when they were hunting for whales under the leadership of the Captain Ahab . For a long time, critics have tried to analyze the text from the perspectives of religion, race or colonialism, and attempted to reveal the profound meaning of it. While with the deterioration of the ecological environment in the twentieth century, a new perspective of eco-criticism has arisen. This thesis will analyze this great works from the perspective of eco-criticism, excavating some eco-value views including in the text. By doing this, I hope to achieve the aim of the practical significance of eco-criticism: to raise people's ecological consciousness by introspection and criticism.We can see the novel as a fable, which is full of warnings. Firstly, by setting up the characters, Melville wants to express his ideas about the relationship between the human and the nature. The Chief Mate named Starbuck had rational opinions about the nature. Though he had the idea to resist Ahab, he could not put it into action. So he could do nothing, only to see the 'Pequod' heading for the grave. Ishmael, the tramp on the sea, kept the close and awe-struck attitude to the nature, and he became the only survivor on the 'Pequod'. Ahab, 'the king of the sea' ,who ignored the forces of nature and lost himself in the conquest of nature, was eventually swallowed by the sea. The entirely different fates of these people expressed this idea: the people who respect the nature will be saved, while the people who disdain the natural will be perished.Secondly, we can see the novel as a three-act play from the part of the plot. In the fable, the 'Pequod 'is not only a whaling ship, but also a microcosm of the humanity; the sea and Moby Dick can be seen as the representative of the nature and natural objects. In the first act: Ishmael was tired of the life on the land, so he determined to work as a sailor on a whaling ship. He appreciated everything he saw with the attitude oi' closing the natural and there was a harmonious relationship between human and the nature. In the second act: relying on the strength of the appliance, human began the trip of global whaling and it was also a trip of destroying the nature. In the third act, the nature took revenge on the human's behaviors and as the sole survivor, Ishmael began to introspect the relationship between the human and the nature. The three-act play is reminding us: the right relationship between man and nature is sharing, rather than confronting.Thirdly, through the novel-- Moby Dick, which is kind of a fable, Melville gives us a lot of inspirations and reflections. We should get rid of the silly idea that we only focus on the economic value of the nature. And now we should pay mor attention to the multiple values of the nature. We should not be intoxicated with human's control of the natural laws blindly, but also see the double-edged characters of the laws. Meanwhile, we have to learn some ethics from the natural world with an open-minded attitude.To analyze the Moby Dick from the new perspective of eco-criticism and to examine Melville's forward-looking sense of the ecological crisis will be helpful for us to deal with the current worsening ecological crisis. And I think this is also the practical significance of this thesis.