分析《白鲸》的象征手法..doc

毕业论文
题目:分析《白鲸》的象征手法
Title: On the Use of Symbolism in Moby Dick
Introduction
The novel Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville, is generally regarded as one of the most popular and the world’s greatest masterpieces in America literature. In this book, Symbolism is given a full use, providing readers with another way to understand the novel and creating the literary value above time and space.
Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819. His parents were of middle—class family background. His childhood was a secure fortable one, but his fate changed in 1832, when his father died and left the family with huge debts. Therefore he was forced to drop out, and engaged in lots of jobs. Among them, the early sailing experiences were quite rewarding. It not only became a store of raw materials for his visions of life but also broadened his horizon. That is to say his real education was at sea. Once he said “a whale—ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.” Melville began working on Moby Dick about a “whaling voyage” in 1850 when he was halfway in the work; he met Hawthorne, who is an American Shakespeare to him. As a result of his impacts for Hawthorne, Moby Dick appeared in late 1851.
Moby Dick is a whaling tale based on Melville’s experiences of sailor’s years; the direct source Melville’s sailing experiences accumulate to his writing. In addition to a detailed account of the operations of the whaling industry, the novel is also considered as an encyclopedia of everything: history, philosophy, religion, etc. (刘洊波. 2000. ). Unluckily, it was overlooked in its author’s time due to its deep worry about human civilization and gloomy atmosphere of pessimism. Melville’s reputation “surged from the lesser American writers into the pany of Shakespeare and a few fellow immortals of world literature so that only Whitman, James, and Faulkner were seen as his American equals.”(Gottesman 2044). His literary reputation naturally leads to a study of the story of the big