Anonymous
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People say that Moby Dick is about a gay male of leisure activities(Ishmael) who memorizes all there is to know about whaling so that he can hang out with fishermen who he is sexually attracted to. The life lesson of Moby Dick is to not let your genitalia lead you in life. Most literature professors are gay and so they will hype up books that have gay characters in them and Moby Dick is one of those books.
KJC
I don't really think so. I didn't get that impression when reading it.
Athena
No, that is just a lazy interpretation so you can get invited to campus cocktail parties with all the Deans. Toe the line sister and don't rock the boat.
atomic fireball
No. It’s about ‘hubris’ and blasphemy. These authors were very intelligent people (Melville was a genius, As were a number of other authors and poets of his era) and they based a lot of their works on Greek classics, Greek and Roman Mythology, the Bible, Shakespeare , etc. And the concept of “hubris” (Pride against nature, pride against God and so on) plays a big part in the classic Greek tragedies.I’ve read a lot of Dick and I didn’t pick up on any racial overtones. In fact in my opinion Moby Dick the Whale actually represented God. Captain Ahab was ‘going against God’ with his obsession in killing this whale. White symbolizes spirituality and purity among other things. As a matter of fact, there is a whole chapter in that novel devoted to the symbolism of the color ‘white’ and it doesn’t go into racial issues that I can remember. (Although I would have to look at it again to make sure.) Even Captain Ahab’s crewmembers felt Obsessively hunting down and killing this whale was an act of blasphemy on a Ahab’s part.. On the other hand this bad@$$ whale did take off Ahab’s leg so who can blame him? And any of the biographies of Herman Melville or synopses of that novel I’ve seen have never mentioned racial themes per se. There’s a lot of creative freedom which goes along with creating musicals. They don’t necessarily have to be true to the original literary sources. Poetic license.
Marli
How would a recent Moby Dick musical be allowed to promote white superiority? It would be an economic kiss of death for all concerned.
Ahab was a New England (American Yankee) whaleboat captain. One harpooner in his crew was definitely not a white man. A skilled harpooner was an essential member of the crew so he was probably treated with the respect due to his job. Moby Dick was a very angry white whale (possibly a sperm whale)
You should study the books about the book, but I think it was a man versus nature and the sea story.