Contents

Abstract in English

Abstract in Chinese

I. Introduction

II.Religious meanings of the roles

2.1 Ahab

2.2 Moby dick

III. Other things with religious meanings in the novel IV. Background and transcendentalism

4.1. Background

4.2. Transcendentalism

V. Conclusion: Destruction, Rebirth, and questions Reference

1

“Moby Dick”'s religious significance

Abstract

Melville's masterpiece, "Moby Dick" is the world's cultural heritage. Religious significance of it is still relatively less researched. Melville?s religious belief is very complex, difficult to determine. First, God is in his mind, the God in "the Bible ? Old Testament ", people have to fight against their own mind to follow

God?s wishes. He?s God is also the God of the universe, which means that the white whale has represented the divine nature. He questioned God's mercy in "the Bible". In the early19th century, Transcendentalism is raised in a number of writers.

Melville, lost faith in the industrial revolution, too. So he was trying to search of a destruction and rebirth in the whaling adventure.

[Key Words]:

Melville "Moby Dick" religious meanings transcendentalism

2

摘要

麦尔维尔的著作《白鲸》是世界文化遗产。其宗教重要性相对来说却很少有人研究。麦尔维尔的宗教信仰很复杂，很难确定。首先，他相信上帝，这里的上帝是指《旧约全书》中的上帝。人们必须遵循上帝的意旨并同自己的想法做斗争。他的上帝也是宇宙之神，所指的是白鲸就是神圣自然的代表。他怀疑《圣经》里上帝的怜悯。在19世纪早期，超验主义作家的人数不断上升。麦尔维尔在工业革命时期也迷失了自己的信仰。所以他尝试着在捕鲸冒险中寻找毁灭与重生。

关键词:

麦尔维尔 《白鲸》 宗教意义 超验主义

3

I. Introduction

It is about whaling. “Pei Tak” ?s Captain Ahab bent on killing Moby Dick, a

cruel smart whale who bite off his leg , almost tracked all over the world, through twists and turns, the boat finally hit with Moby dike . After three days of tracking, a harpoon had hit on Moby Dick, but the boat was crashed by the white whale, Ahab?s harpoon was tied by the rope and fall into the sea. No one survived but a sailor named Ishmael ("Bible" names, meaning people who was abandoned)

II.Religious meanings of the roles

2.1 Ahab

In "Moby Dick", the most attractive role is the Captain Ahab. His

experience is almost the same as revenge tragedy in the Elizabeth period，being

both hero and villain ,most people should not be compared with him. His mind

and will, courage and conviction make him a best man above others. However, the

novel more than once asserted that he was paranoid and stubborn and his

hatred white whale as a symbol of evil.

It is suitable to sum up him with the words: “no fear of God, just like a God”.

His name came from a story of Bible.

Ahab is the Middle East's eighth monarch, a ancient northern kingdom of

Israel. His father was Omri (Kings 16:29). His empire includes the country

of Moab, the Kingdom of Judah. But his kingdom was weakened by the

constant war with Syria.

His marriage with Princess Jezebel of Sidon adopt

Phoenician god Baal into Israel, which lead to the prophet of Elijah and the

other opposition, and finally received the doom.

2.2 Moby dick

"Moby Dick "is a legendary white whale, the novel shows the symbols of its

multiple meanings from the perspective of different characters. In the pagan?s view, it is calm and serene at times, but sometime become a brutal sea monster of

terror; mad Buddha Bailey treat it as God of the earthquake; in the eyes of Ahab, "It is all the rage and pain to people, enough to stir up things stinks, all truth with malice, and all the things people thinking about the magical life and mysterious spirits heresy, 4

and all the evil, etc, are Moby Dick."

It is the evil and terror in Ahab?s heart; it is the enemy difficult to

conquer and must be destroyed. But to Ishmael, the white whale represents

both noble peace and terrorist death, it is the opposite of all the universe, the combination of contradictions, a symbol of the universe?s wide and mystery of God's boundless divine power, fate and the future of mankind, It is important to give Ishmael enlightenments not simply to destroy, but to strive to

improve awareness, the pursuit of truth.

III. Other things with religious meanings in the novel

Moby Dick is not only ubiquitous, but also immortal. This is the divinity Moby dike represents, his like the fate of a man, which is invincible.

Priest Maple in the beginning of the novel played a wonderful sermon

spread of "Moby Dick"?s theme. By understanding the preaching of this chapter can we understand the whole book? Priest Maple preaching is the key to open the novel.

Sermon skillfully adapted from "The Bible ? Old Testament" and "Jonah", especially that part of the adventure of Jonah. Priest Maple preached an attempt to prove God's way is correct, the individual soul's relationship to God is difficult to determine, it needs to consider the "self" ?s

nature. Maple thinks individual can express the spirit of Christ. He insisted that the individual will be subject to the will of God, the individual "self" should

be submerged in God's "self".

Maple priests use the language of whaling, established by the story

of whaling, to express an idea which is hard to understand: the most perfect "self "can be reached only through the elimination of "self" .Faith is a problem through the whole book. Even if he sometimes does not know what to believe and who to believe in the circumstances, he still keeps the faith. For example,

in "Moby Dick" Chapter 48, in the night of the storm, they put a boat down to search the whale but nearly met disaster, and the standard-bearer Kui Kui sat there, as a symbol of the people without any belief in despair, supporting their hope in weakness "(316).

5

IV. Background and transcendentalism

4.1. Background

In Mid-nineteenth century, literature has a common theme of "reject and seek ", the theme of "Moby Dick" in similarly with that.

Captain Ahab willing to abandon the comfortable life on land to

isolate dangerous sea, the motivation the surface is to kill the white whale for revenge, but in reality is to find himself and the spirit of peace and freedom;

Other crew members, or for a living force, or to escape the merciless fate, or to change the environment, escaped the land that can not bring them joy and happiness and focus on seeking the ideal world. In their eyes, the land around the machines of modern industrial had lost the depth of life. In the boundless sea, whether calm or storm, the sea can always stirred the human imagination and the unlimited accumulation of the original vitality of the body, "only the

ocean was full of the highest truth"

4.2. Transcendentalism

Melville doubted the God's mercy in "Bible".

Melville contemporary with the New England Transcendentalist movement, a symbol spiritual leader and the main characters Emerson believed that "man is his own god “. On this point, Ahab described by Melville on the line of the Emerson?s "self" criterion. He is a man "do not fear God, but like god", he

should be God himself. Although Melville's pessimism is far different from Emerson's Transcendentalism and positive philosophy, however, he was full

of respect for Emerson?s heroes. Captain Ahab though not actually won a victory but won in spirit. He is a master of shrewd risk-taking, is a tragic hero. "This is the Ahab - his body was split; but the spirit of Ahab, is a hundred feet centipede, which is still active"(788). Article on the fate of Emerson: "For the people can think that, he was free." Strong-willed individuals want acquire the land, destroying the forest, built a railway. Their driving force as tough as Ahab;

they missed the fun as he did. Other is ignored. As he did with the same plan to show his confidence and strong will; the final as he did to ruin.

V. Conclusion: Destruction, Rebirth, and questions.

I boldly speculated the author?s intention of this fiction. In the early 19th

century, the capitalism developed rapidly, and religion and the God are less 6

important. The lackness of faith became the problems that plagued many intellectuals, so they explore in the spiritual realm, trying to find out who are they, what they should believe in, the former spiritual world, or the new material world. White has been mentioned in the novel repeatedly, it is a symbol of divine?s purity and terror.

Ahab and other people are abandoned, or we can say, they gave up their faith in God, they even suspected the God, and having the subconscious hostility. In the antagonism between the different faith, God destroyed with them all. Clearly, the author praised Ahab, who pursuited the truth and mysteries of the universe.

Their ultimate aim is to put the vulnerability of human being, goodness

and ugliness of human nature into destruction, then create a new equilibrium, a new world, but how is the new world , no one knows. Ishmael as the narrator and the escaper, was the author's own mapping in the novel, he wanted to challenge the unknown, challenge the ugly and the weakness of human nature, want to fight against the God which makes him shaking, want to become his own God. However,

because of hesitation, as well as a realistic compromise, he escaped (symbolic of the world's compromise.)He lost the chance to become a hero, and return his life of a dead-walking. It is also a problem left to us, if our faith is correct or not, does it really exists. In the era of Melville, the emergence of atheism had shaken the fundamental of people?s belief, and nowadays in China, almost everyone are

atheist, who?s will should we listen to, should we do the same thing like Ahab, to fight against the fate, to be our own gods, or, just as Ishmael, compromise on the fate and return to the land of hypocrisy, become only a narrator who tells the legend of other heroes?.

Reference

孙筱珍.《<白鲸>的宗教意义透视》

靳大力.《<白鲸>中麦尔维尔的矛盾思想》

7