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Moby-Dick Videos 9 videos
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Moby-Dick - The Preface and the First Line 2153 Views
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Description:
Whoa, fifty different ways to say the word “whale” just in the Preface? Something tell us we’re in for a whale of a time. Yeah, we know, that was obvious. We did it just for the halibut.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak Moby dick the preface and the
- 00:09
first line Ah la Shmoop We start off with a
- 00:12
few chapters that aren't actually part of the story Instead
- 00:16
we get some usher who tells us how to pronounce
- 00:19
whale in fifty languages and then proceeds to share a
Full Transcript
- 00:21
bunch of quotes from whale books And they actually wrote
- 00:24
wailed looks Others other than working better than sleeping meds
- 00:30
what's the point of all of his breakfast stuff Well
- 00:33
welcome to moby dick This is kind of how the
- 00:36
whole book is You will find all sorts of weird
- 00:39
whale information just like in the middle of the story
- 00:43
So so why does he start that way He's Trying
- 00:46
to show us that he knows his stuff Basically melville
- 00:49
is proving to us that he himself is a primary
- 00:52
source for all that He actually the actual melville not
- 00:56
author milton historical melville actually grew up sailing and was
- 01:02
on was on ships a lot and so he actually
- 01:04
knew what he was talking about He spent a lot
- 01:05
of time at sea in his twenties and he's basically
- 01:07
saying okay i've seen this i know about you know
- 01:10
whale blubber and other things and you can trust me
- 01:15
and it kind of makes the story a little bit
- 01:17
more trustworthy Tom what part of it's also just a
- 01:20
joke Uh moby dick actually something to remember as you're
- 01:23
reading through it Is that like it's Kind of funny
- 01:25
on dh one thing he's doing reference beginning is basically
- 01:29
being joking Being like oh you wanted a really engaging
- 01:32
story about adventure tale fighting and hunting a whale Well
- 01:36
let me start with chapters about you wail names and
- 01:40
the entomology of the tools used teo hard prune them
- 01:44
exactly on and then of course as is the case
- 01:47
with almost all literature he's basically introducing us tow the
- 01:50
themes that were going to come across throughout the book
- 01:52
and throughout the book we're going to hear a lot
- 01:55
about whales and if we don't know what the specifics
- 01:59
are about the whale's going harder for us follow so
- 02:02
he's kind of helping us out all sounds good but
- 02:05
deb decipher for us the first line of the book
- 02:08
What does that mean Where's it lead All right once
- 02:10
we've gotten through the all that preface stuff we get
- 02:12
teo call me ishmael and this is one of most
- 02:15
famous opening lines in all of literature like missy franklin's
- 02:19
thing for the us one thing um so these three
- 02:27
words to pack to such a punch that it reminds
- 02:31
us that as we're reading moby dick we need to
- 02:34
pay attention to almost everything that's and of course we're
- 02:36
not gonna read the whole book We're not gonna read
- 02:37
every word in this in this course but every lining
- 02:40
something these three words prepares for everything that's to come
- 02:43
For example Call me ishmael Ishmael is a name from
- 02:46
the bible and already we get okay Biblical imagery We
- 02:50
should probably be looking for more of that done that's
- 02:52
already something that we know we need to keep our
- 02:54
eye out for ishmael The name means god will hear
- 02:59
so from the very beginning were having this guy saying
- 03:02
hey call me the one that god will hear like
- 03:05
that's a pretty big statement Then we gotta start thinking
- 03:09
ways this god who is god going to be and
- 03:11
as we get introduced other characters we say you know
- 03:14
is god god or is god someone else And then
- 03:17
of course we have call me ishmael Why doesn't he
- 03:19
say my name is ishmael Or like i am ishmael
- 03:23
call me ishmael We kind of start to say like
- 03:26
are we supposed to trust this guy he's saying call
- 03:28
me that but but we don't know be bob or
- 03:30
steve exactly And so that means from the very beginning
- 03:33
we search take everything with a grain of salt And
- 03:36
so when people quote call me ishmael is one of
- 03:38
the most famous lines of literature It's not just because
- 03:40
it's easy to remember easier than like the opening line
- 03:43
of pride and prejudice it's because it really holds a
- 03:46
lot of meaning already from the beginning what's the point
- 03:51
of the preface What is the first line of the
- 03:55
book mean Why is the first line famous You know
- 03:58
call me what you know Comey Shmoop
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