Question #3: Rebecca Hall, Alex Wikoff & Corinne McConnell
Melville was a lover of foreshadowing; he loved to tie in themes from one section of the book with another.
When Ishmael is brushed by the numinous, one might be able to brush it off as merely a "creepy" event. Perhaps Ishmael simply has a heightened awareness of that which is other-worldly, but with careful consideration the reader will easily see the connection between this encounter with the numinous and the overall omnipresence of the numinous in the remainder of the novel.
Dr. Kelley L. Ross said ". . .only reason connects us to the transcendent and that sensation is only a subjective and confusing factor that distracts and distorts reason: sensibility, our passive relation to objects, is the mark of our imperfection." Perhaps Melville was highly aware of this statement and this incident with Queequeg and Ishmael in bed and the numinous was merely a foreshadowing of the implications of the numinous regarding the white whale. The whale "becomes whatever the viewer sees, through his subjective senses."
http://www.lapetitezine.org/lloyd.html
http://www.friesian.com/eliade.htm
posted by Rebecca @ 10:00 AM
1 Comments:
It's unlikely that Melville could have been aware of a statement made long after his death. But good.
5/5
Post a Comment
<< Home