That there had been times when Malcolm was separated from his father,īecause it appeared as if the two could not get along at all there wereĪlso reports that Melville liked to menacingly carve the roast beef at In a discussion with one of Melville's daughters observed that sheįelt terror even in the act of remembering her father he was told then That Melville's childrenįelt terror in front of their father is stated also by Henry Murray, who "sense of powerless yearning to protect her from any overbearingīehavior of her husband" 2) an "overpowering terror of hisįather, coupled, not illogically, with a sense of impotent hostility Sense of guilt and shame in relation to his mother," and a "isolated desperation," whose sources were: 1) a "deep Malcolm's was most probably a suicide triggered by a state of Scolding, and was found the next day dead with his pistol at his Out, locked himself in his room, perhaps to avoid a harsh paternal The night before: Malcolm had come back home late after "an evening This tragedy wasĮspecially traumatic for Melville, because the two had had an argument Just 18 years old-he used a pistol on September 11. 1867: the probable suicide of his first son, Malcolm, when he was 1864: the death of his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. On the road)-he was by then already suffering from rheumatism in his 1862: a serious injury in a road accident (his carriage toppled 1861: the death of his father-in-law, Lemuel Shaw, who had beenĬhief justice of the Massachusetts supreme court. Manhattan, where most of the existing copies of his writings were kept. 1853: the fire at the Harper & Brothers warehouse in Pneumonia contracted while crossing on foot the frozen Hudson River. 1832: the early death of his father, most likely owing to a his constant financial dire straits, owing to his socialĬondition and the commercial failure of his books. (Rollyson et all,Īmong Melville's troubles and traumatic experiences theįollowing must be mentioned as relevant for understanding his works: ![]() Rousseau's ConfessionsĪnd works by the German idealists (Kant and Hegel). Months in Europe, where, while visiting England's, France'sĪnd Germany's majestic cathedrals, among other books (like Lasted 18 months starting from February 1850), Melville spent four The moment of his dismemberment, but with roots probably in the Capeīe it reminded here that, before beginning work on Moby Dick (which Rousseauistic cast of mind is present also in Ahab, being triggered at Sorely corrupt the human mind and soul often irreparably. Paths set by the civilized Western world, which does nothing if not Most powerful voices in Western culture to speak against the crooked Melville's thought system, the French philosopher being one of the Here we can indeed identify a Rousseauistic strain in Humane than life among the "civilized." (Rollyson et all, by their lifestyle, which, to him, seemed far more sensible and Observing first-hand the machinations of imperialism, Melville wasĭisgusted by the brutality and inhumanity of white Westerners, as wellĪs by the complicity of Christianity in the imperial system he wasĮqually moved by the kindness of many Polynesian people he encountered, "savages" clearly stems from what he saw in Polynesia. Melville's particularĪntipathy for the civilized world and its treatment of those it deemed Ships on which he served and on land, opened Melville to notions ofĬultural tolerance and universal humanity. His close association with people of all races, both aboard the Of his second major character in Moby Dick, Ishmael, as we shall later Novelist soon became in life a universalist and pluralist (in the vein As pointed out by Rollyson et all, the American His many and long seaĪdventures moulded his mind and soul in ways that made him reevaluate "religion could be as much a bane as a blessing, as much a source Instead attaining an ever more intense illumination showing him that ![]() Reached a "secure level of religious certainty or peace," Melville, it would appear, in his lifelong spiritual quests never
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