Moby-Dick Summary
Herman Melville

Everything you need to understand or teach Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.

Moby-Dick Summary & Study Guide
1 eBook
8 Student Essays
1 Encyclopedia Article
4 Literature Criticisms
1 Book Notes
...and more

30 Moby-Dick Lessons
20 Activities
180 Multiple Choice Questions
60 Short Essay Questions
20 Essay Questions
Pre-Made Tests and Quizzes
...and more

Moby-Dick Summary

Now admired as a masterpiece of American literature and considered one of the greatest novels of all time, Moby-Dick was published to unfavorable reviews, and its author, Herman Melville, was subsequently unable to make a living as a writer. He wrote just three more novels after Moby-Dick and then retired from literary life, working as a customs officer, writing poems, a novella, and a few short stories. Not until the 1920s were the...

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Moby-Dick Study Guide

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Further Study

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Encyclopedia Articles (1)

Moby Dick

3,385 words, approx. 12 pages

Moby Dick by Herman Melville Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. Because of his family's financial instability, Melville was forced to go to work at an early age. After a variety of ... Read more

Project Gutenberg eBooks (1)

Moby Dick: or, the White Whale

230,408 words, approx. 769 pages

CHAPTER 2 The Carpet-Bag I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific.  Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arriv... Read more

Herman Melville Biographies (6)

Herman Melville

2,637 words, approx. 9 pages

American author Herman Melville (1819-1891) is best known for his novel Moby-Dick. His work was a response, though often in a negative or ambivalent way, to the romantic movement that dominated Americ... Read more

Herman Melville

6,099 words, approx. 21 pages

"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see th... Read more

Herman Melville

14,709 words, approx. 50 pages

Herman Melville, who died almost forgotten although he had once been a popular author and had left behind ten notable books of prose fiction and four of verse, has gathered increasing fame, especially... Read more

Herman Melville

10,802 words, approx. 37 pages

"You must have plenty of sea-room to tell the truth in," wrote Herman Melville in Hawthorne the pseudonymous, two part review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) that he publish... Read more

Herman Melville

19,915 words, approx. 67 pages

Herman Melville drew upon his adventurous travels on sea and land for the primary materials of his greatest fiction and poetry. Out of his experiences in the merchant service (1839), the whaling indus... Read more

Herman Melville

16,488 words, approx. 55 pages

Biography EssayHerman Melville, who died almost forgotten although he had once been a popular author and had left behind ten notable books of prose fiction and four of verse, has gathered increasing f... Read more

Essays & Analysis (12)

Critical Essay by Edwin Shneidman

8,508 words, approx. 29 pages

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Critical Essay by Pamela A. Boker

18,660 words, approx. 63 pages

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Critical Essay by Paul McCarthy

11,344 words, approx. 38 pages

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Critical Essay by William Hamilton

5,322 words, approx. 18 pages

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Analyze This, That and All of It!

661 words, approx. 3 pages

They say revenge is best served cold. Or is it? What about wet and cold in recognition of Capitan Ahab? As vengeance seems to be his only purpose after loosing his leg. In Herman Melville's Moby Dick... Read more

Ahab: A Determined Man

858 words, approx. 3 pages

Ahab is the main character Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville. Ahab, the captain of the Pequod and his crew are off on the high seas. He has a mission that he feels he was to complete. Ahab is a st... Read more

Moby Dick: How It Came to Be Written

1,665 words, approx. 6 pages

Moby-Dick has been treated so much as the idiosyncratic work of an individual genius that any way we can find to recover its larger cultural sources is bound to seem especially valuable. Nevert... Read more

Moby Dick: Captain Intent on Vengeance

1,482 words, approx. 5 pages

"Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a great many whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the former, one was of a most monstrous size. This came towards ... Read more

The Goodness of Moby Dick

2,628 words, approx. 9 pages

The journey of The Pequod is one of adventure and destiny. Herman Melville describes this journey in the classic novel Moby Dick. Melville believes in using many physical objects as symbolizing bigg... Read more

Moby Dick: Was Ahab a Madman?

918 words, approx. 4 pages

Author: Jean Paul Nery Ahab was a madman obsessed with his own personal revenge. Was Ahab a madman obsessed with his own personal revenge, or was he a noble man against the evil universe? You will p... Read more

Spiritual and Moral Reassessment in Moby-Dick

796 words, approx. 3 pages

In Herman Melville's novel, Moby-Dick, Ahab struggle to capture the elusive white whale leads up to the moments when Ahab realizes that God is not flawless, his deep sense of isolation, and how good a... Read more

Surface: the Key to Understanding Moby-dick

3,203 words, approx. 11 pages

Surface: The Key to Understanding Moby-Dick There are many key themes and words in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. One of the more interesting words found repeatedly is the word surface. There are ... Read more

Free Book Notes (1)

Moby Dick

25,074 words, approx. 84 pages

Moby Dick Book Notes is a free study guide on Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Browse the summary below: Author Biography / Context of the Work One-Page Plot Summary Character Descriptio... Read more

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