#American Literature

[burningvelvet]

I finished Moby Dick. So, to continue my former post(s) documenting my thoughts, here we are (spoilers ahead):

captain ahab: i am once again asking hast thou seen the white whale

Narrator, for the 5 millionth time describing captain ahab: "MONOMANIACAL. MONOMANIAC. MONOMANIA."

I was thinking "the homosexual themes everyone talks about are really exaggerated apparently…" and then I got to the chapter about sperm squeezing

Stubb meeting with the French in chap 91 had the exact vibe of a filler episode on a comedy sitcom

there are a lot of moments that reminded me of The Office ngl like i could just imagine stubb in the little interview chair just talking. so much meme material. he's seriously just doing his own thing. the little random characters like the blacksmith and carpenter just talking shit and side-eyeing ahab in the background lmaoooo

Saint George didn't kill a dragon, it was a whale #THETRUTHREVEALED #WHALETRUTHERS

It would have been hilarious if the British people told Ahab that they already killed Moby Dick already before he could get to it. I was so hoping that would happen. Bonus points if it was the Rachel after he'd turned them away.

Ahab discusses the topic of madness a lot. It's almost like he's… mad...

I vote Ahab for the most Byronic hero to ever Byronic… Heathcliff and Rochester have nothing on him… The origin of the Byronic hero, Byron's titular character from the narrative poem Childe Harold, is literally mentioned by name in the novel and had to be a blatant inspiration - it could not be more obvious! (I have yet to encounter the famed Byronic heroes of Russian literature, most notably Eugene Onegin, a work where Byron is also blatantly name-dropped).

Everyone thinking Queequeg was dying and having a coffin made to his measurements and filled with grave goods at his direction and then him literally climbing into the coffin to test it out and then waiting silently to die…. then all of a sudden getting better and saying he chose to recover bc he remembered he had something on his to-do list….. iconic

Ishmael referring to Queequeg as "my Queequeg…" omg. Queerqueg

Queequeg drawing figures like the ones on his tattoos omg… au story where Queequeg is an artist/tattoo artist when???

I was literally saying "AWWWWW" out loud when Ahab and Pip were having their little moments

The irony of Ahab abandoning the Rachel then it coming back for Ishmael… the coffin lifeboat… etc… good stuff…

okay ahab is my man but yeah he was an asshole to the captain of rachel.

also feel bad for tashtego. he wanted that gold doubloon so bad and ahab was like SIKE, MOTHERFUCKER! umm tashtego did not get cut out of a whale by queequeg to deal with ur shit ahab!

Once again wanting a Black Sails/Moby Dick AU… I found this essay about the similarities between Flint/Ahab https://ijms.nmdl.org/article/view/22389/14361

They only have like 2-3 little moments together but like… Starbuck/Ahab kind of outdoing Ishmael/Queequeg there for a moment… chaps 132/134… oh my godddddddddddddd whyyyyyyy

Captain Ahab's moments in chapters 36/37 AAAAAHHHHH you will see me being normal about this

I noted some of my favorite Ahab moments/chapters and they are 36/37/41/70/99/108/109/113/115/116/119/125/129/132/134/135. Like I may seriously just re-read those chapters (no offense to Melville's whale facts, Stubb's jokes, & Pip's insanity)

the end is kind of similar to the great gatsby in the sense that you finally realize the entire novel was actually written for him to cope with his grief-related trauma & then suddenly it all makes sense. the lingering, the sentimentality regarding seemingly insignificant details or people, the meandering/digressing/procrastinating getting to the end, etc.

there are actually several moments -- i don't know if he actually referred to ahab or the others in past-tense specifically, but there were several moments where i felt like i kind of thought he was giving away the end before he did (it wasn't a shock to me bc i read about the end prior, but still)

[xoluciferxo]

(Here is a discussion post I wrote about Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Birth Mark.” In the post, I compare the short story to the fall of man written about in Genesis. Do you think this is a valid comparison? I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts.)

Birth-Marks and Forbidden Fruit

(Jack C. 2024)

In terms of surface-level allegory, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Birth-Mark,” depicts an allegorical interpretation of human mortality and imperfection; nevertheless, I believe that an even darker allegory lies beneath the surface. One thing truly stood out to me as I read the story, and that is how the first sentence of dialogue is phrased. The sentence reads, “‘Georgiana,’ said he, ‘has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?’” (1). The key here is that the sentence is posed as a question. I was immediately reminded of Genesis 3:1, where the serpent in Eden asks Eve, “‘Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” (New International Version).

Both Eve and Georgiana seem indifferent to the question at first, but later, they succumb to doubt and end up attempting to “perfect themselves,” resulting in, essentially, the loss of life. Before the birthmark is removed, Hawthorne writes, “Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she” (9). All it took was the suggestion of imperfection to make Georgiana begin to doubt and hate when she previously thought her mark added to her, “…charm…” (1).

This juxtaposition of Georgiana with Eve due to the first spoken dialogue being posed as a question leads me to believe that Hawthorne offers a double allegorical interpretation. The deeper symbolic meaning of Georgiana exemplifies the theme of innate human sin, or, the fall of man in terms of human doubt.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birth-Mark.” 1843.

New International Version, Bible. Hodder &

Stoughton Ltd, 2007.

[feral-ballad]

Kate Baer, from And Yet: Poems; “Idea”

[Text ID: “I will enjoy this life. I will open it like a peach in season, suck the juice from every finger, run my tongue over my chin. I will not worry about clichés or uninvited guests peering in my windows. I will love and be loved. Save and be saved a thousand times. I will let the want into my body, bless the heat under my skin. My life, I will not waste it. I will enjoy this life.”]

[flowerytale]

Janet Fitch, from White Oleander

[juneacademia]

When Emily Brontë wrote, “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

[newvision]

— Bob Dylan from When the Deal Goes Down on Modern Times (2006)

[soircieres]

‘— and I stood there, flooded with longing, electric, shivering.’

— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. July 1950s

[theoptia]

Marie Howe, from Magdalene: Poems; "The Teacher"

Text ID: So, I thought I had to become more than / I was, more than I'd been. / but that wasn't it. It seemed rather that / something had to go. Something had to / be let go of.

[oresti-s]

Bright Dead Things, Ada Limón.

[daweyt]

Louise Glück, from “Poems: 1962-2012; Persephone The Wanderer", published c. 2012.

[megairea]

I think houses live their own lives along a time-stream that’s different from the ones upon which their owners float, one that’s slower. In a house, especially an old one, the past is closer.

Stephen King, Bag of Bones, 1998

[feral-ballad]

Kate Baer, from And Yet: Poems; “40”

[Text ID: “because sometimes it is easier to / write yourself out of the play / than to face another breakfast.”]

[flowerytale]

James Baldwin, from Giovanni’s Room

[juneacademia]

“Most of us … are slaves of longing.”

— bell hooks, Communion

[illustration-alcove]

Angie Hoffmeister’s illustration for Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

[cheesy-bagels]

this image haunted me until i made it real