Ahab, A Tragic Hero Of Excessive Self-Reliance, Isolation & Imbalanced Mindsets

Herman Melville is one of the greatest romanticists in the American literary history with distinctive feature in literary creation. He has created quite a few novels and published several volumes of poems. Moby-Dick is his representative masterpiece. Although failing to raise public attention at the beginning of its publication, today it has not only ranked among the few best novels of nineteenth— century America, but also universally recognized as cultural heritage of the world.In Moby-Dick, the author has chosen the theme on whales and whaling industry. With the literary device—symbolism widely applied to express profound philosophical thoughts, a variety of things in nature are symbolic in this book. He has been greatly influenced by the Bible and Shakespeare and especially transplanted the Shakespearean skills in the creation of the novel, which enables Moby-Dick to attain desirable artistic effect.Aiming at the tragic effect of the novel, this thesis focuses on the analysis of the protagonist, Captain Ahab in the novel, who is a tragic hero of excessive self-reliance, isolation and imbalanced mindsets. It is made up of six chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to Herman Melville and his novel—Moby-Dick. Chapter two goes deep into the presentation of Ahab's excessive self-reliance by analyzing the historical period and the nation that are typical of self-reliance and Ahab's self-reliant personality. Chapter three comments on Ahab's state of isolation from society, other people and normal life. Chapter four mainly concentrates on the study of Ahab's imbalanced mindset towards the White Whale and his linear thinking in contrast with Ishmael's circular thinking. In Chapter five Aristotle's theory of tragedy is applied to analyze the heroism and tragic fate of the Captain. Chapter Six comes to the...