美國文學 week12

12/2 Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener"

•  In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is a book by American writer Nathaniel Philbrick about the loss of the Whaleship Essex  in the Pacific Ocean in 1820. 

•  In the Heart of the Sea is a 2015 American biographical adventure thriller film based on Nathaniel Philbrick's 2000 non-fiction book of the same name about the sinking of the American whaling ship Essex in 1820, an event that inspired the tale of Moby-Dick.

              Directed by Ron Howard  

            

            白鯨記：怒海之心

• Conflicts: people vs. people, society, nature, himself

•        Chris Hemsworth is an Australian actor. He is best known for his roles as Kim Hyde in the Australian TV series Home and Away (2004) and as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Thor (2011), The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Avengers: Age of Ultron(2015).

•      Moby-Dick 

 Ishmael - The narrator, and a junior member of the crew of the Pequod. Ishmael doesn’t play a major role in the events of the novel, but much of the narrative is taken up by his eloquent, verbose, and extravagant discourse on whales and whaling.

Ishmael is a figure in the Tanakh and the Qur'an and was Abraham's first son according to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Ishmael was born to Abraham and Sarah's handmaiden Hagar (Genesis 16:3).

Islamic traditions

The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is a dystopian novel, a work of speculative fiction, by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. Set in the near future, in a totalitarian Christian theocracy which has overthrown the United States government, The Handmaid's Tale explores themes of women in subjugation and the various means by which they refuse to be subjugated. 

 

•      Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, was the second son of Abraham, the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and the father of Jacob and Esau.

•      Sacrifice Isaac
•      The Binding of Isaac, is a story from the Hebrew Bible in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah. The account states that Abraham  "bound Isaac, his son" before placing him on the altar.

Ishmael à outcast 邊緣人

Infamous à without fame(reputation)

fame: noted

•       Gabriel: In the Abrahamic religions,Gabriel is an angel who typically serves as a messenger sent from God to certain people.

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored
in a literary work. 

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices
 that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used
to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
 

白鯨記被視為 chaos

tragic relief

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Chapter 1: Loomings

Call me Ishmael.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth;

whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul

Then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

drizzly (adj.)When the weather is drizzly, the sky is dull and

grey and it rains steadily but not very hard.

•      《走在夢想的路上》謝哲青

•       Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet from the American Renaissance period. Most of his writings were published between 1846 and 1857. Best known for his sea adventure Typee (1846) and his whaling novel Moby-Dick (1851), he was almost forgotten during the last thirty years of his life. 

 Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short

story writer, and journalist. Shortly after the publication of 

The Old Man and the Sea (1952).

The old Man and the sea --> aging fisherman

Beowulf --> aging hero

2012 is a 2009 American science fiction disaster film directed
and co-written by Roland Emmerich. 

2012: The end can’t come soon enough

This is the micro-level drama of "2012," the latest nihilistic

disaster flick to revel in the destruction of the planet. John

Cusack plays the castoff father (Jackson Curtis), a failed

novelist getting by as a limo driver. We greet him as 

he rolls out of bed, spilling his copy of "Moby Dick" as he

rushes out the door, disheveled and late for a camping trip with

his kids.

apocalyptic 啟示錄

·         p1197

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

A Red, Red Rose -->alliteration, simile

Moby Dick --> metaphor

To Helen

Robert Burns

A Red, Red Rose

Bonnie lass (beautiful lady)

Haggis: sheep’s pluck

Auld lang syne

Should old…

Scottish diaspora

·         Bartleby .com

Elderly, deadly, friendly, lovely, cowardly (adj.)

Benito cereno

P1128

Ah Bartley!

Ah humanity!