A Great Prophecy of the Historical Development of Human Society: Moby Dick
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.200312.051How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Melville, Moby Dick, imperialism human society, reflection, prophecy Ahab, Gold coin
- Abstract
Moby Dick is a profound American fiction which leaves readers endless space to investigate. Literary critics find the essential value of it from different angles. The connection between the text and social phenomenon is the core part we should think about. It is this kind of connection that shows us the profoundness of the writer’s thoughts and social values of the work. Critics argue that Moby Dick is a mirror of American society in the middle of the 19th century. The ship “Pequod” is a representation of the country of America. The plot and the characters in the book are reflections of the social problems of a developing nation. However, the social values of the book are not constrained to the reflection and analysis of American society only. The story shows the feature of a period that may share a similar background with other countries and nations. Viewing from the historical perspective of the development of a nation, I argue that the experience of “Pequod” subtly predicts certain periods that some nations have been through in a certain historical period, including the political and social conflictions in Russia and Germany in the Second World War. The situations of these countries during that period share common ground with the experience of “Pequod”. Also, we can all find a leader as “Ahab” and people who unconsciously become the “sailors” of him at that time. Firstly, same as Ahab who lost one leg to Moby Dick, The Soviet Union and German were undergoing hardships and were threatened by other countries—German was going through aftermaths of the First World War and the Soviet Union’s socialist ideology received hostility from Western countries. Secondly, Ahab treats Moby Dick as a devil. The leaders in German and Russia also tend to go beyond the line and overstate the power and evilness of their enemies. Thirdly, Hitler and Stalin have all the qualities to make a popular leader just like Ahab does. They are wise enough to know the desires of the citizens. We can think of the coin in Ahab’s hands as the temptation of wealth, but we also can assume it as all the fancy promises politicians have made to their people. Finally, through the angel of centralization of power, we can find that ship “Pequod” is not the only the place of autarchy. To be more specific, the ship “Pequod” is a representation of the whole human being. It shows us the whole human society. I would argue that in a world now full of the environmental and financial crisis, America is the “Captain Ahab” with its overlord status over other nations. And we, with the “coin” of temptation for more material content and unknown outer space resource, are heading to a way that we never get to be back. This paper will analyze the book based on the prediction it has made for the historical development of human society.
- Copyright
- © 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Hua Zhao PY - 2020 DA - 2020/03/18 TI - A Great Prophecy of the Historical Development of Human Society: Moby Dick BT - Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Social Science (ISSS 2019) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 275 EP - 283 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200312.051 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.200312.051 ID - Zhao2020 ER -