Herman Melville was
American novelist, poet and short story writer. He was born in 1819 in New
Yourk. His most famous novel is Moby-Dick. He died in 1891.Nathaniel Hawthorne
was American novelist and short story writer. He was born in 1804 in Salem. His
most famous novel is Scarlet Letter. He died 1864. These two novels are
carrying many similarities and differences, and in this assignment, I will be
make compare between them in many sides.
The first similarity is
obsession. It leads to the individual’s
downfall as can be proven with both Roger in Scarlet Letter and Ahab in
Moby-Dick. The former’s obsession with getting revenge on Arthur for the
shame. He has brought to him for leading
Hester to be punished for the act of adultery leads to his destruction. He
plays the role of Arthur’s friend and tries to act his revenge by making him
suffer throughout the story. Also, Ahab faces his obsession of revenge. He seeks to kill Moby Dick, because it was
responsible for taking one of his legs and causing him to have to walk on a
wooden stick. He is relentless in his quest to find Moby Dick even at the
expense of the lives of his seamen and listening to the disastrous accounts of
other ship captains, who had the misfortune of being in the whale’s vicinity. In
the end, his obsession with the whale becomes his downfall along with the rest
of the crew, excluding the narrator. Obsession is the ruin of men as is plainly
obvious in the characterization of Roger and Ahab and their subsequent end.
The second similarity,
in the scarlet Letter, Demmesdale and Chillingworth shared an important
similarity with Ahab and Moby Dick. Dimmesdale was the secret lover of Hester
and he is the father of Pearl. Chillingworth was Hester husband. So he decided
to take revenge from who is taking his wife. Also, in Moby Dick novel, Ahab
appears as Chillingworth character who wants to take revenge from Moby Dick,
because he eats his leg.
The third similarity is symbol of gray.in
Moby Dick, Ishmael also notices a face wreathed in wretched long strands of
gray hair. The color gray symbolizes a mixture of both good and evil. It shows
a good person that is guilty of a sin. Gray also reflects the color of hiding
something. In Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne shows that sin isolates a person from
her community and from God. When he uses the color gray to describe Hester‘s
clothes, he is insisting Hester and her lover are hiding their secret of their
love affair.
The last similarity is
religious theme. The two novels are carrying same theme (religious). At first,
Puritanism present in Scarlet Letter. The narrator depicts the Puritan
society. In the Moby-Dick, there are
mentions of the religious is when Ishmael enter black church. Also that, Ahab
take he to punish Moby-Dick, brute animal, for biting off his leg in his mind,
he is fighting against the God.
However, there are many
differences between them. The first one is narrative. From the beginning these
books are presented in a different aspect. Scarlet Letter has an omnipresent
narrator while Moby Dick is written in a first person point of view. It narrated by Ishmael. His personality, and
the first person pronouns, fades in and out. The former allows the reader to
understand what everyone is thinking throughout the book from the main
character, Hester’s private thought regarding the letter A on her chest and the
punishment she has to endure for committing adultery to the thoughts of little
Pearl and how she lives her life outside of the circle of the community away
from the children with nature being her only playmate. Unlike the latter, this
omnipresent narrator knows everything that the people are thinking and doing
even those who are outside of the main scope of characters that are important
to the plot of the story. The reader does not have to guess what anyone is
thinking for Hawthorne presents us with every thought that is a part of the
plot or affects the main characters. The latter gives a narrower point of view,
but it also gives us a name to the idea of this narrator that the former was
unable to give us.
Furthermore, the
Moby-Dick novel is written by Herman Melville. Its genres are adventure, epic,
quest novel, tragedy and allegory. It was published in 1851. This story takes
place in aboard the whaling ship (Pequot), Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Its setting (time) was in 1830 or 1840. The tones of novel are celebratory,
dramatic, hyperbolic and philosophical. The motifs of it are whiteness, surface
and depths.
However, the Scarlet
Letter is written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Its genres are fiction prose and
romance. Ti was published in 1850. The story takes place in Boston and Massachusetts.
It is setting (time) was in middle of 17th century. The tone of the
story is ironic. The motifs of novel are civilization versus the wilderness,
night versus day and evocative name.
To sum up, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville has
great two novels (Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick). There are any similarities
between them. For example, the two novels are carry the theme of obsession.
Also, there is similarity between Ahab, Moby Dick Chillingworth and Demmesdale character. Also that, the symbol
of gray and religious theme are other similarities between them. However, there
are many differences between them as the
narrative. In Scarlet Letter, the author uses
omnipresent narrator and in Moby Dick, the author uses a first person
point of view Furthermore, there are differences between them in genres, the
year of publishing, setting and other things.
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