MOVEMENTS OF HUNTERS AND PILGRIMS: FORMS OF MOTION AND THOUGHT IN MOBY-DICK, THE CONFIDENCE-MAN, AND CLAREL

This thesis examines the positioning of religious forms of motion, particularly the form of pilgrimage, in three works of Herman Melville: Moby-Dick, The Confidence-Man, and Clarel. The thesis combines previous scholarly and critical perspectives on religion and philosophy in Melville with an interrogation of acts and metaphors of movement within these three works. This thesis probes pilgrimage as a problem for Melville, a movement that has an ideal form, but a form that is often manipulated and interrupted by the American subjects that undertake it. In his playing out of the pilgrim type over multiple characters, Melville hones in on one specific distortion of the pilgrim: the hunter-pilgrim type. This thesis questions whether the hunter-pilgrim type is an inevitable expression of pilgrimage itself, or rather a uniquely American or Western distortion. Ultimately, the thesis concludes that the two can be separate, but that Melville’s recognition of this fact cannot free him from his own caughtness in the dilemma. Therefore, the hunter-pilgrim type and its errors recur to the end of Melville’s publishing career, and are even contained in the closing lines of Clarel.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Marcy, Eric George

• Herman Melville

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/90748

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/90748