The Setting Of Moby Dick

Term Paper Title	The Setting Of Moby Dick
# of Words	1173
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	4.69

The Setting of Moby Dick

     There are many important aspects throughout the novel "Moby Dick", by Herman Melville.  In considering these aspects of the story, character representation, symbolism and setting are three main categories that have contrived this novel�s importance.  Each of these categories defines the thoughts Melville expressed and how he divides himself from other human thoughts.  Melville distributes complexity and depth of human experience of life in "Moby Dick".  The main objective of this following review will concentrate on one main category.  A necessity for a reader is to obtain a visual concept of the story; Herman Melville has fabricated a vast sense of visualization in the setting of "Moby Dick".
     There are many areas throughout the novel that can be described as setting.  These areas consist of cities, their streets, businesses, a church and most importantly, the ship, called the Pequod, and the bodies of water in which it traveled.  Each area that Melville used as his setting was based upon his knowledge and experience in the whaling industry.  In following Melville�s novel, Manhattan, New York began this good versus evil tale.
     In chapter one of "Moby Dick", Melville explains the surroundings of Ishmael.  "There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs � commerce surrounds it with her surf" (Melville, 1).  Here, Melville has made the reader visualize a city surrounded by water, and island.  Not only was the city bound by water, but also its people were drawn to its water.  Melville expressed the reasoning for Ishmael�s desire for taking to the seas, by using Manhattan�s scenery as a lure.
     New Bedford, Massachusetts was the first encounter for Ishmael, as a resting point before his voyage set sail.  In the first experience in New Bedford, Ishmael walked its streets.  "New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business of whaling", in which, offers a sense of oldness and deterioration of the scenery (Melville, 6).  New Bedford�s history of whaling began in the 1750�s.  "The New Bedford whaling industry prospered most from 1825 to 1860" (From Old Dartmouth).  Therefore, Ishmael was entering New Bedford in its downfall period of the industry.  It had already reached the peak in 1847.  New Bedford is located on the Acushnet River; therefore one can visualize the banks filled with ports and fisherman.  Along with the scenery, the aroma could be sensed with a suffice imagination.
     In the story, Ishmael finds himself at the "Spouter Inn".  The narrator describes this establishment as, "a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft" (Melville, 9).  The inside was dark and was decorated with an oil painting and tools.  "The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears".  Mentally picturing the entry hall could be easily accomplished by Melville�s description.  One other example of the "Spouter Inn" has set the scenery in a positive reflection of New Bedford�s industry.  "Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of a whale�s jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it" (Melville, 10).  This place in which Ishmael was to stay, indeed reflected his further encounters to come.
     While Ishmael resided in New Bedford, he experienced a place that outlined the fate of the Pequod.  Ishmael had attended a sermon in a nearby chapel.  "Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, a...

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