ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

Southern Gothic, Kafka, and Moby-Dick: Moby-Dick 2423 Views


Share It!


Description:

Call me Shmoop...er, we mean, Ishmael. It’s time to catch a whale. ...Just kidding, we’ll read about it instead. The WWF told us we can’t do reenactments of Moby-Dick anymore.


Transcript

00:00

Thank you We sneak in Southern gothic moby dig Ah

00:10

la shmoop So now we're moving on to a twelve

00:15

page short story called moby dick by herman melville Written

00:18

a long time ago Can you give us a short

00:22

press use of the seven hundred ninety two page opus

00:27

What happens in moby dick Moby dick starts with the

00:32

now world famous line Call me ishmael Ishmael is going

00:38

to be the narrator mostly for the rest of king

00:46

The basic structure of it is he is a depressed

00:50

young man living in new england and tuck it hey

00:54

Decides way to cure his depression would be to get

00:57

on a whaling ship So he goes to do that

01:00

And for three years he spends his time on the

01:03

pea quad under the helm The insane captain A hat

01:09

who leads them to chase the white whale Moby dick

01:12

all across the world on it ends poorly for everyone

01:16

Except ishmael is the only one alive The end of

01:19

the story got it So original jaws maybe you're exactly

01:25

you all right What makes moby dick great Like what

01:31

Wide re read this thing and torture are teenagers to

01:34

make them read it as well right What makes moby

01:37

dick a classic Moby dick has a lot going on

01:41

and it should if it's nearly hundred pages Herman melville

01:45

wass writing at a very specific time in american history

01:51

And eighteen Fifty The country's seemed like it was on

01:54

the verge of going anywhere And melville wass both excited

01:59

and a little bit worried by this suspect going anywhere

02:02

Meaning it could become a french protectorate It could be

02:06

owned by mexico it could be a shooting gallery She

02:10

was certain degree yeah that in western expansion had already

02:15

for the most part been fully developed At that point

02:19

we had sailed the seas We had seemed to have

02:22

conquered everything that there was a conker So he was

02:26

concerned about where we were going to go from there

02:29

And captain have sort of represents the terrible ways that

02:34

that could get Melville was definitely worried about whether who

02:38

we choose as our leaders who we choose to follow

02:42

As in american society captain ahab sort of represents the

02:49

the wrong way of elected leaders What happens in moby 00:02:55.835 --> [endTime] dick What makes moby dick a classic

Up Next

The Importance of Being Earnest Summary
123039 Views

They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...

Related Videos

The Giver Summary
105893 Views

Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...

Invisible Man (Ellison)
1818 Views

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
1256 Views

Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...

Quotes: A fool's paradise
294 Views

Find out the meaning behind "a fool's paradise."