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But the point which drew all eyes was that Scarlet Letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. (Hawthorne, 2000, 12) The author of Moby Dick, Herman Melville, goes to great lengths to show that the color white is everything, including the greatest Evil embodied in Moby Dick. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, emphasizes how Hester is the outcast from society and forced to live on the fringes, on the boundary between the town and the woods the border of good and evil. Both authors use symbols to develop the effects of evil on society. Melville paints the white of Moby Dick as a symbol of the worlds evils to Ahab. (Roberts, 1966, 43) Moby Dick and Ahab personify each other through vengeance. Moby Dicks snow-white forehead symbolizes God in that He couldnt be reached, but he is there.
Ahab is not an evil man but only a man trying to dispose of God, the Evil of the Deity. Ahab represents most of mankind, who in trying to conquer God, is destroyed by Him instead. The paint of whiteness also appears on Ahab. When Ishmael first sees Ahab, he notices the huge white scar running down the side of his face. (Roberts, 1966, 35) Ahab's one leg is also a white peg, made of pure whalebone. The sin of Moby Dick is now embedded into Ahab. Ahab is the negative side of humans because he wants to take revenge on Moby Dick for tearing up his leg.
Ishmael also notices a face wreathed in wretched long strands of gray hair. (Roberts, 1966, 35) The color gray symbolizes a mixture of both good and evil. It shows a good person that is guilty of a sin. Gray also reflects the color of hiding something. In Ahab's case, he is hiding his obsession to the world about his devoted pursuit of the White Whale. Hawthorne shows that sin isolates a person from her community and from God.
When he uses the color gray to describe Hester's clothes, he is insisting Hester and her lover are hiding their secret of their love affair. Ahab's obsession for Moby Dick compares to Hester's obsession with Dimmesdale through the SCARLET LETTER. The theme is sin and how it affects the characters. Hester learns to cope with her punishment, Pearl is the embodiment of the sin, and Dimmesdale dies as a result of guilt. The SCARLET LETTER represents the sin of passion that is committed. Hawthorne repeatedly penetrates the thought that guilt within the person stays if not caught.
Hester thinks that she can just cast off her ignominy, removing guilt as easily as the letter was removed. However, she is truly repentant for her sins. Pearls whiteness is not an evil mark, but only that of purity. Pearl is the product of sin and has to live through the bumps she encounters. Hester's sin causes her daughter to live through the torture given by the town. If Hester is able to change the meaning of the evil Adulteress to Able, then Pearl will be able to outlive the isolation from the community and God.
For isolation, terrible enough in itself, is one of the many effects of sin. The English given name for Hester is derived from Esther, which means star. Ishmael is the name of an angel in the Bible. In Moby Dick, Ishmael symbolizes the wheel of life, the boundaries you bump into and the problems you overcome.
In the Scarlet Letter, Hester is the bumps and she has to overcome those problems. Both authors develop detailed symbols in getting their message across - how the effect of ones sin towards society could change a persons life instantly.
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Research essay sample on Good And Evil Moby Dick