Images of the Other in Herman Melville's Moby Dick

Abstract

This thesis evaluates the different images of the Other appearing in Herman Melville’ famous novel, Moby Dick. Herman Melville lived in nineteenth century America, in a time when the theme of otherness and othering was a very current issue. This was the time of growth and economic development that resulted in population increase and the exploitation of resources. In 1819, when Melville was born, the nation only consisted of 22 states, when die din 1891 it doubled to 44. These were the times of Westward expansion and the popular image of the doctrine of manifest destiny, the belief that the US should control all of North America, which resulted in the conquest of wilderness, the legitimization of the institution of slavery and of colonialism, and the feeling of cultural superiority. Melville saw these problems of the nineteenth-century America and reflected upon them very critically throughout his novels, with a view that foreshadowed the views of many modern thinkers.