The Cosmopolitan Consciousness In Moby-Dick

Although first published in 1851 to a mixed reception with disappointing sales,Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is now considered one of the world’s greatest masterpieces.It is an epic sea story of Captain Ahab’s leading the doomed voyage of the Pequod’s markedly diverse and international crew in revengeful pursuit of a sperm whale named Moby-Dick.It is a compound of sea story and philosophical drama.Since the Melville revival,there has been a prodigious amount of excellent scholarship and criticism of Moby-Dick.A marvelous encyclopedic work like Moby-Dick is inexhaustible with intensity of meanings that is worth probing into.As a highly interdisciplinary theoretical vision,cosmopolitanism has become the research focus of many academic subjects including philosophy,sociology,politics,ethics and culture,etc.The core of cosmopolitanism is the understanding of oneself as a"citizen of the world or universe." In contemporary theory,cosmopolitanism can be comprehended as an ethical way of thinking about the world,which emphasizes our universality and respects cultural diversity.This thesis aims to analyze cosmopolitan consciousness in Moby-Dick from the perspective of cosmopolitan ideology through an overview of cosmopolitan theories and some illustrations of the text.Melville’s experience of a cross-cultural traveller laid the foundation for his cosmopolitan outlook.Therefore,his work continuously focuses attention on the encounters of individuals from different nations,races,classes,cultures and religions,which reflects his meditation on cultural identities and norms of moral and ethical ways of interaction with the Other.A careful reading of Moby-Dick also shows the embodiment of cosmopolitanism:first,the mixing-genre forms of the novel makes a tacit argument implying the equality of different languages and cultures and tolerance of diversity;second,both narrator Ishmael and main character Queequeg are cosmopolitan figures who share the identities of the Other and show great tolerance toward differences of cultures,races and religions;finally,the Pequod represents the microcosmic American society in the middle of the 19th century with striking feature of cosmopolitanism.In a globalized era,under the prevailing impact of global economies and technologies,rereading Melville and Moby-Dick will undoubtedly reveal new interpretations.This thesis is an attempt to provide a referential perspective for the understanding and appreciation of Moby-Dick in this new era.