A Brief Overview of Motifs in Moby Dick Book Review (Book Review Sample)

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A Brief Overview of Motifs in Moby Dick
The book, Mody Dick is a literal work in which Merville narrates the sensational adventure of Ahab and his crewmembers in the Pequod. As the story unfolds, the author makes use of different literal devices, making an understanding of the fundamental and universal ideas explored in the work complex. However, there are structures, contrasts, and literary devices that are recurrent: motifs. We shall navigate four of the motifs that may aid in clarifying the concealed themes.
It is evident that the issue of racism is quite repetitive. At first, the author depicts the Pequod as an Isle of equality and harmony, amid the racial diversity of the crew. Racism emerges when every white crew in the Pequod has to rely on a non-white harpooner. These are the crew members who do the filthy and risky cores aboard the whaling ship: Flask mistreats Daggoo to win the prized whale; the analogy of Pip’s worthlessness underpins racism. His ‘worthlessness’ comes out when he is left in the middle of the ocean after he jumps from a whaleboat. In chapter two, we find Ishmael’s lateness making him spend some night in Bedford. He stumbles into a church inhabited by wailing and weeping African Americans. This statement has racial connotations, where it depicts African Americans as backward: rather than get divine consolation in a church, they end up weeping and wailing. The title of the sermon further emphasizes racism in the book: darkness is black. Queequeg is a “dark-complexioned” harpooner. The use of the quotation marks means he’s unlike other harpooners, who are ordinarily white. In the same episode, Queequeg is depicted as a ‘savage’, who were deemed ‘uncivilized’, un-groomed and rude people, well beyond the imagination of the whites.
Cannibalism is first brought into the limelight when Ishmael settles at Spouters-inn. The oil painting on the wall is a depiction of a whale attacking a ship. Since the whale and the ship thrive in the marine environment, the two are metaphorically depicted as members of the same species. The devouring act of the whale on the ship is cannibalistic. Ishmael at first perceives Queequeg as strange and probably dangerous. He later decides to share the bed with the ‘sober cannibal.’ Ishmael sets to the sea as a form of ‘self-annihilation’. The author depicts him as one who is out to ‘cannibalize’ oneself.
Merville starts out on leadership when he recalls the way Ahab calls on the crew and gives instructions to the mission of the voyage. As a leader he binds them for the mission: places a bet on a gold doubloon and performs a ritual. Merville stylistically also uses flashback to highlight on leadership. In chapter twelve, Queequeg explains that he is the rightful heir to the throne in his homeland. Leadership in his homeland is depicted to be in conflict with Christianity: the latter makes impure and ‘defiles’ the former. Ahab, the captain of Pequod, represents as a legendary hero. His overconfidence makes him defy common sense and assumes a god-like character: he leads the crew with the aim of destroying the evil linked to Mody Dick. Ahab proclaims he will be the ‘fulfiller’ and ‘prophet’ of Moby Dick&acir...