Moby Dick-Structure And Form :: essays research papers

Moby Dicks structure is in a sense one of the simplest of all literary structures-the story of a journey. Its 135 chapters and epilogue describe how Ishmael leaves Manhattan for Captain Ahabs whaling ship, the Pequod, how Ahab pilots the Pequod from Nantucket to the Pacific in search of Moby Dick, and how in the end Ishmael alone survives the journey. This simple simply coercive structure is what keeps us reading, as we ask ouselves, "Where will Ahab seek out his enemy next? What will happen when he gets there?"     Some critics get divided the book into sections, like acts in a play. The first, from Chapter 1 to Chapter 22, describes Ishmael, portrays his growing friendship with Queequeg, and serves as a kind of dry-land introduction to themes-whaling, brotherhood, and mans relationship with God-explored in enormous detail at sea. The next section begins as the Pequod sails and continues to Chapter 46. Here you meet both Captain Ahab and, in descrip tion if not yet in the flesh, his great enemy, Moby Dick. A long middle secction, from Chapter 47 to Chapter 105, shows the Pequod at work as whales are hunted and killed and other whaling ships met. It also shows Ishmael pondering the meaning of these activities. The fleck slows as Melville takes time to gather and display proof of the importance of the Pequods voyage. Then, from Chapter 106 to the books end, were caught up in the excitement as Ahab steers his ship nearer and nearer to Moby Dick and concluding disaster.     Although Moby Dicks basic structure is simple, the book is anything but simple, in part because Melvill writes in several literary forms. As a whole, Moby Dick is of course a novel, but some of its chapters are written as if they were scenes in a play. The chapters involving Father Mapple and Fleece contain sermons. Other chapters, most notable Ishmaels discussion of whales and whaling, resembling essays. Indeed, some readers suck in compa red Moby Dick not to novels but to other kinds of literary works.