Primitive Beginnings in Herman Melvilles Moby Dick Essay -- Moby Dick

Primitive Beginnings in Herman Melvilles Moby Dick Among the numerous themes and ideas that author Herman Melville expresses in Moby Dick, one of the less examined is the superiority of the archaic man to the modern man. As an undertone running through the entire book, one can see in Moby Dick the same admiration of the august savage that is so prevalent in Melvilles earlier tales of the simple and idyllic life of the cannibals, even though the management has been shifted to the dangers of seeing things from only one point of view and to the struggle between good and evil. Before proceeding to a discussion of how Melville glorifies primitive man in Moby Dick, a working definition for the term must be agreed upon. In her illuminating essay, The Concept of the Primitive, Ashley Montagu points out the fallacy of using the term primitive in a scientific context because it is so ambiguous and has so many different connotations attached to it. He shows that so-called pri mitive peoples are neither as undeveloped, uncivilized, or simple as the term implies. However, here I will use the term subjectively, with all its implications, because when Melville idolized primitive man, he did not have a specific, scientific definition in mind. He had an ideal, the ideal of man before the corrupting influences of civilization had taken their toll. On one aim of thought, Queequeg offers a prime example of the superiority of a truly primitive man. This native of Kokovo is the romanticized picture of the peoples Melville encountered in his sojourns on the tropical isles, whose innocence and virtue so impressed him. He displays his selflessness and strength when he dives after and rescu... ...their interference. In Moby Dick, that feeling of reverence and admiration toward mans primitive beginnings is still there in the noble persona of Queequeg, in the whalers and whaling that he glorifies to such an extent, and in the primeval ocean itself, which teaches its wisdom to Ishmael. Works Cited and Consulted. Brodhead, Richard H. Trying All Things An Introduction to Moby-Dick. New Essays on Moby-Dick or, The Whale. ed. Richard H. Brodhead. Cambridge Cambridge UP, 1986. Duban, James. Melvilles major(ip) Fiction Politics, Theology, and Imagination. Dekalb Northern Illinois UP, 1983. McIntosh, James. The Mariners Multiple Quest. New Essays on Moby-Dick or, the Whale. ed. Richard H. Brodhead. Cambridge Cambridge UP, 1986. Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1964.