Chapter 5 and Epilogue Summary and Analysis

"Moby Dick": Bloom says that he insists on seeing Ahab as the negative hero of "Moby Dick", whose power and determination are doomed but deeply human and quixotic but also uniquely American. According to Bloom, "Moby Dick" "is the fictional paradigm for American sublimity." (p. 236). In Bloom's account, Ahab's God was not the Christian God but an early, bungling god, opposed by the true God, who remains hidden. Bloom says that "you rightly worship fire, according to Ahab, by asserting your own sacred selfhood against it." (p. 238).

"As I Lay Dying": "As I Lay Dying" invokes Agamemnon's bitter speech about Clytemnestra in the "Odyssey": "As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes for me as I descended into Hades" (p. 240). Abby Bundren has died, and "As I Lay Dying" is...