One Nation Under Melville. An Analysis of Nationalism, Imperialism, and Race in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Abstract

Moby-Dick, or The Whale is a novel famed for its multifaceted nature, due to the myriad of both literary themes and political views that critics can explicate from it. In this thesis I will show how the novel Moby Dick, or the Whale can be interpreted in a manner that engender nation and myth building for the United States, in which the contemporary greatness of the nation makes up for the lack of an aggrandized past. Furthermore, I will attempt to show how the text uses critique of ideologies such as slavery, colonization, and imperialism (through the Pequod and its crew) to both criticize American ideologies and political agendas, whilst simultaneously (and perhaps a bit hypocritically) making use of the very same patriotic and nationalistic ideology and language it itself criticizes. In the thesis, concepts and theories such as nationalism, community, nationhood, nation as narration, and imperialism are defined through the theories established by critics such as Anderson, Bhabha, and Said, as a means to engender a better understanding of what is meant by them when used in the analysis of the novel, as well as why these concepts are relevant for the thesis As such, this thesis is another piece of evidence for the limitlessness of Moby-Dick, as it recognizes the vast openness of the text, that enables the myriad of interpretations, explications, and understandings of the novel. All which adds further evidence in favor of the continued canonization and importance of Melville’s Work.