Introduction
Philosophical thoughts and ideas of Herman Melville in Moby Dick make any reader deep in feelings of his characters, live their lives and just experience their adventures. The author introduces his heroes as individuals: Ahab, on the one part, a brave sailor and a captain, who is always ready to meet any difficulties and reach his goal at any coast and a white and tremendous Whale, on the other part, who is considered to be a victim of Ahab’s life principles.
Main body
Herman Melville tried to present emotional coloring in his tale to make it expressive and more exciting. This very feature of his work helps us to understand the deepest content of this book. Due to the approaches he used in the book any person can easily read Moby Dick between lines and stand in one shoe with the characters. One can differently understand the actions of both heroes and the reason why the author used these or those methods to transfer his mood on a reader. During the whole story we can meet circles, spirals and vortexes which help us to feel the behavior and mood of whale Moby Dick. It reflects the actions of the whale who has nothing to do but fight for his right to live a happy life, to exist in this world as anybody else and get his freedom. With the help of vortexes and spirals a tremendous whale managed to destroy Ahab’s ship and by doing this started a cruel war.
Their revengeful war with the captain is emotionally described with the help of such phenomena as metaphors and symbols, expressive means and approaches. They are used to show great concern of Melville Herman about the destiny of the characters, because both of them are eager to reach their goals and overcome all the obstacles they can meet on their way. Life if not simple for these heroes, they should always fight and do this every minute, especially the whale who stays in dangerous situation and can only dream of peace. Tremendous spirals and concentric circles present a picture of dangerous situation and tension of some moments, the changing mood of the sea. One can find this book too philosophic and maybe a bit boring, but it is not so. The author presents a big amount of descriptive information for us to understand the feelings of those who cannot live without adventures, who do not imagine his life without difficulties and victories. Emotional coloring by using concentric circles, spirals and different vortexes inspire us to read this book again and again.
The problem of freedom is raised in the book to describe inequality of rights to live in this world without thinking about own death as it happens with the whale. The only thing he can do is to protect himself but it is not always the case. He should always remain tense and careful about his future actions for him not to be trapped, not to leave the world so early or become a part of an experiment for Ahab and his team. Of course Ahab did not wished to catch any of the whales, but only Moby Dick. It was a principle of his life and an aim to reach by all means. Concentric circles, spirals and vortexes are described as a kind of image with own mood and quality. One should try to understand this characteristic and direction of the author’s thoughts which we can compare with a picturesque stream of imagination having deep sense. This philosophic combination of creativeness and flow of ideas shows a great life experience of the author who was glad to share it with a reader in his book Moby Dick.
Conclusion
It is not easy to express my own impression as to what I have read. I derived an utmost pleasure from living the life of the characters, feeling their emotions and worrying for their fates. An adventurous mood of Ahab, difficulties of the whale, unstable mood of the nature described with the help of different spirals and circles left a good and exciting mark in my mind. I consider this work of Melville Herman to be quite successful and inspiring for future actions, giving a desire to live an active life, travel and just be an adventurous person. It becomes clear from the first page of the book that one should carefully read it trying to catch every detail of the events described. For this the author presented the mood not only of the characters but of the nature as well, made us worry for everyone in the book and being completely involved. I am pretty sure that this book will never leave any reader indifferent, because it has its own spirit and inspires everyone.
References
Gupta R. K. International Fiction Review. Journal article, Vol. 31, 2004.
Joy M. Leighton, Literature, Disaster, and the Enigma of Power: A Reading of ‘Moby-Dick’ Studies in the Novel, Vol. 38, 2006.