Prophecies of the Breach: The Whiteness and Blackness of Sea Monsters

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dc.contributor.advisorReckson, Lindsay Vail, 1982-
dc.contributor.authorKahn, Nicholas A. B.
dc.date.accessioned2014-07-22T15:32:44Z
dc.date.available2014-07-22T15:32:44Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.description.abstractThis essay addresses racial monstrosity in the sea-monsters of two important novels from the antebellum United States: the "shrouded human figure" in Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1839) and the White Whale in Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Whereas scholarship on the racial monstrosity of these monsters has historically read them allegorically as products of the specific conditions of pre-Civil War America, I argue for transcending the allegorical reading. I read the monstrosity of Moby Dick and the "shrouded human figure" rather as rooted in fears and desires that were not abolished with slavery, and are not confined to a historical moment. They blur metaphysical boundaries that are fundamentally human, lying between known and unknown, self and other, white and black. I argue that, given an allegorical reading, Poe's sea-monster embodies a fear of racial revolution that is racist; but becomes a more-destructive metaphysical fear of blackness overtaking whiteness when one moves beyond the allegorical/historical reading. Similarly, for Ahab Moby Dick embodies the fear of blackness usurping whiteness, but Melville offers something that Poe does not: a way of viewing the monster that reconciles whiteness with blackness. Melville's antidote to the monster is linked to the abolitionist mentality that blends black and white America into a new and coherent whole. But, more importantly, his vision of peaceful incorporation (rather than violent division) turns the boundary between white and black from a source of fear into a catalyst for transcendent human communion.
dc.description.sponsorshipHaverford College. Department of English
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10066/14404
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rights.accessHaverford users only
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/
dc.subject.lcshRacism in literature
dc.subject.lcshMelville, Herman, 1819-1891. Moby Dick
dc.subject.lcshPoe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849. Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
dc.subject.lcshSea monsters -- In literature
dc.titleProphecies of the Breach: The Whiteness and Blackness of Sea Monsters
dc.typeThesis
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