I Know Him Not, and Never Will: Moby Dick, The Human and the Whale
| dc.contributor.advisor | Twidle, Hedley | |
| dc.contributor.author | Harris, Katherine | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2021-08-06T07:28:39Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2021-08-06T07:28:39Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2021-08-06T07:27:50Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | In this thesis, I argue that Herman Melville's Moby Dick depicts the ocean and whales in a way that develops aesthetic theory into a proto-environmentalist message. Melville draws on theories of the mathematical and dynamic sublime as outlined by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, while also employing Goethe's Theory of Colours in his depictions of the ocean setting. Goethe posits that opposing phenomena require one another to signify and to function, and Melville dramatises this idea throughout a complex and often self-contradictory novel. Moby Dick depicts whale hunting in a paradoxical, unstable way which both defends the practice and highlights its cruel nature. In considering this, I trace how depictions and cultural representations of whales have changed over time, shifting from the whale as icon of the monstrously non-human to the whale as touchstone for environmental humanism. Melville, despite the image of Moby Dick as a monster, also portrays whales in a way which humanises them and allows the reader to empathise with them, so allowing for a counter discourse against whaling to emerge. The industrial consumption of marine animals is highlighted in Moby Dick, as Melville notes the various ways in which whales and similar creatures are used for food and other products. Unscrupulous methods of acquiring resources are paid particular attention in the chapter, ‘Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish,' which I use as a guide to the contradictory ideologies at the heart of the text. I argue that the aesthetic theory embedded in the novel enables a nascent environmentalist consciousness, and I place such moments in dialogue with more recent accounts of whales and work from the field of the oceanic humanities. | |
| dc.identifier.apacitation | Harris, K. (2021). <i>I Know Him Not, and Never Will: Moby Dick, The Human and the Whale</i>. (). ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33711 | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.chicagocitation | Harris, Katherine. <i>"I Know Him Not, and Never Will: Moby Dick, The Human and the Whale."</i> ., ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33711 | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.citation | Harris, K. 2021. I Know Him Not, and Never Will: Moby Dick, The Human and the Whale. . ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33711 | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.ris | TY - Master Thesis AU - Harris, Katherine AB - In this thesis, I argue that Herman Melville's Moby Dick depicts the ocean and whales in a way that develops aesthetic theory into a proto-environmentalist message. Melville draws on theories of the mathematical and dynamic sublime as outlined by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, while also employing Goethe's Theory of Colours in his depictions of the ocean setting. Goethe posits that opposing phenomena require one another to signify and to function, and Melville dramatises this idea throughout a complex and often self-contradictory novel. Moby Dick depicts whale hunting in a paradoxical, unstable way which both defends the practice and highlights its cruel nature. In considering this, I trace how depictions and cultural representations of whales have changed over time, shifting from the whale as icon of the monstrously non-human to the whale as touchstone for environmental humanism. Melville, despite the image of Moby Dick as a monster, also portrays whales in a way which humanises them and allows the reader to empathise with them, so allowing for a counter discourse against whaling to emerge. The industrial consumption of marine animals is highlighted in Moby Dick, as Melville notes the various ways in which whales and similar creatures are used for food and other products. Unscrupulous methods of acquiring resources are paid particular attention in the chapter, ‘Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish,' which I use as a guide to the contradictory ideologies at the heart of the text. I argue that the aesthetic theory embedded in the novel enables a nascent environmentalist consciousness, and I place such moments in dialogue with more recent accounts of whales and work from the field of the oceanic humanities. DA - 2021_ DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town KW - English language KW - English literature LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PY - 2021 T1 - I Know Him Not, and Never Will: Moby Dick, The Human and the Whale TI - I Know Him Not, and Never Will: Moby Dick, The Human and the Whale UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33711 ER - | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33711 | |
| dc.identifier.vancouvercitation | Harris K. I Know Him Not, and Never Will: Moby Dick, The Human and the Whale. []. ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature, 2021 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33711 | en_ZA |
| dc.language.rfc3066 | eng | |
| dc.publisher.department | Department of English Language and Literature | |
| dc.publisher.faculty | Faculty of Humanities | |
| dc.subject | English language | |
| dc.subject | English literature | |
| dc.title | I Know Him Not, and Never Will: Moby Dick, The Human and the Whale | |
| dc.type | Master Thesis | |
| dc.type.qualificationlevel | Masters | |
| dc.type.qualificationlevel | MA |