Moby Dick, By Edgar Melville - 1981 Words

He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality than most of us (Braswell 3). Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote these words in his journal in 1856, speaking of his old friend Herman Melville. Melville did indeed find himself stranded between belief and unbelief, torn between the stringent and widely accepted Calvinist doctrine of New England, and an analytical skepticism that could not satisfy his desire for more. He wanted to embrace the whole of God, but every portrayal that the churches around him had to present was skewed, lacking, or oppressive. Moby-Dick, Melville s epic novel-that-isn t, served as an outlet through which he could work through his fears and frustrations regarding the inflexible doctrines of Calvinism, particularly his unabating an xiety concerning the doctrines of predestination and reprobation. By choosing to tell the story of the reprobate instead of the elect, Melville causes his readers to reexamine the unfathomable paradox of God s simultaneous mercy and wrath. Melville s parents raised him in a household where Calvinist orthodoxy was important, but not supreme (Herbert 28). As a child, he was baptized into the Dutch Orthodox Church, in which his mother Maria had been raised, but neither of his parentsShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Moby Dick By Herman Melville1276 Words   |  6 PagesHerman Melville. Moby-Dick is a novel that was written by Herman Melville, during the American Renaissance. Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and a poet. 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