Item Details

title

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

author

Marcy, Eric George

abstract

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.

subject

Herman Melville

Hunters

Movement

Pilgrimage

Pilgrims

Religion

contributor

Greiman, Jennifer (committee chair)

Farmer, Meredith (committee member)

Wilson, Eric (committee member)

date

2018-05-24T08:36:16Z (accessioned)

2020-05-23T08:30:20Z (available)

2018 (issued)

degree

English (discipline)

embargo

2020-05-23 (terms)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/90748 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

type

Thesis