American Literature / Unit 8 AML 0723 short lesson, about 20 seconds
*Moby-Dick*: The Whale and the Hunt
Captions available
The idea
Moby-Dick follows the whaleship Pequod under a captain hunting the white whale that took his leg. Around that chase Melville builds chapters on whale anatomy, on rope, on colour and on the trade itself, so the book is at once an adventure, an encyclopaedia and a metaphysical argument.
In practice
A chase, wrapped in an encyclopaedia.
Where people slip
The digressions are the book, not an interruption.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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