TheRealCharlesC

I’m done. I’m done with school. I’ve finished my project, and I’m most likely going to graduate from high school. The feeling is incredible. I feel on top of the world. I put on sunglasses to block out all the haters and I started to dance. How am I supposed to put in any effort for the rest of the year? Doesn’t matter to me because I’ve just finished my AP Lit Critical Research Project. Oh wait, I’m not done. I still need to post my blogs. Even when the project is done, it’s not. It’ll follow you everywhere, forever. Some may call it a curse, others a blessing. I’d like to think of this project as my Guardian Angel, always looking after me.

I’m starting to come to the conclusion of my paper but I still need to write my general introduction. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to write. I was actually pretty lost when it came to starting my general introduction but I found that when I actually started and got to writing this part, it was actually pretty easy. Out of seemingly nowhere I suddenly knew what I wanted to say, how I felt about this book and why other people really should read it, and the ideas just flowed. I believe it came so easily because of how much I had actually invested into this book and project. I knew so much about this book and author now that I felt like I had a personal connection to it, so finding a way to share my connection with others only seemed natural.

Okay so now that I’ve gotten all of my criticisms that means that I need to actually do something with them. I started my abstracts and what I enjoyed the most was reading my criticisms and going through all of them and comparing them to one another. It gave me a greater appreciation for Melville and the book and what he was trying to do and did accomplish. In regards to actually writing my abstracts I felt like it was pretty routine, nothing special really. I was more invested in reading and learning from my criticisms rather than summarizing them and saying what was good and bad about them and criticizing my criticisms. But I did what had to be done and completed my abstracts.

This is me at college. I did my best to fit in. Spent a good amount of time in the library and nobody questioned me, except to ask if I was going to some sick party later that night (that was a joke, OU doesn’t have sick parties). But overall and all in all my experience in a college library was just fine.

I went to the Kresge Library at Oakland University to find my literary criticisms. I went to OU with my friend Adam Gongol and after spending much longer than it should have to find the library, we made it in. I asked the research assistant on duty where I could find what I was looking for and she was very helpful. Writing down the numbers of a couple of books that could be useful to me. I got a general idea of what I needed from there, but since we were on a time crunch I didn’t stay that long. I went back on my own later, and spent some time at the library with whatever books I wanted to use, and since it was a quiet floor I could stay focused and get some of my work done there as well. I became familiarized with university libraries, so that was one objective completed.

Wow. Okay I’ve finished reading Moby-Dick, so now how do I find inspiration to start my actual project? Where do I even begin? I knew that I couldn’t just do this entire project in order, I wanted to do it the way that I wanted. I think that’s the only way that I could get through it. So I started with my background sources. I felt like that was some of the best research that I could do after finishing my book. Finding my background sources was actually very easy for me and helped me get a much understanding of the book, as well as information about Herman Melville who I honestly didn’t really know too much about. And I was shocked at what I found! Melville was actually a whaler, captured on an island and lived with cannibals! His stories were actually loosely based of his own experiences and I found that extremely cool.

Now regarding the final chapters of the book, it really was a grand finale. There was so much action crammed into these pages, but it wasn’t forced, it was exactly how this novel needed to end. There was the three day final battle with Moby-Dick but also a conclusion to many story lines that were presented throughout the story. Melville put all the pieces together so nicely, from the foretold prophetic demise of some characters to the collection of the gold doubloon. Melville not only gave us an ultimate story but an ultimate ending, which I can’t emphasize enough is so nice. Finishing a book is always leaves the reader with some kind of emotion, and after I finished Moby-Dick, I didn’t really know what to feel. I was relieved I was done, a little tired, but I had to take a step back. I had to think about what I had just read and I realized just why Moby-Dick is as important and receives as much praise as it does. There was so many different aspects of what went into this 600 some page book that were really just phenomenal and I completed understand why this is indeed the first Great American novel.

Finally!!! In chapter 133 on page 595, Moby-Dick makes his first appearance. Chapters 133-135 are the last chapters in the book and entail the chase of Moby-Dick. Reading this section of the book was almost surreal. After reading the novel Moby-Dick, a book about finding Moby-Dick, for so long, when he finally entered it was just a feeling of ecstasy and relief. Have you ever read a book for 600 pages without the title character even showing up!? I knew Moby-Dick wasn’t in the book for long but I assumed he’d make an appearance somewhere before the last three chapters! Melville did an incredible job of keeping the story going for so long as well as keeping the intrigue of the audience.

Chapter 99, “The Doubloon”, is a very revealing chapter I believe. Captain Ahab had nailed a gold coin to the mast of the ship and claimed that it belonged to the first person the spot Moby-Dick, giving everyone motivation. In this chapter, it tells the story of different people on the ship looking at the doubloon and reacting differently. From Captain Ahab, his first mates, and even a young black cabin boy, the meaning of the doubloon was different for everybody and revealed something about their character. To some it was a sign of the whole world, or a sign of something even more, the fight between good and evil, it meant hope for one, and to others it was just a monetary value. Not only does this say something about who these people are, but that different meanings can be found in anything for different people. It was also a foreshadowing for future events to come.

Getting about 300 same pages in, they are actually dealing with whales now. Not Moby-Dick, but still other whales. On the first spotting of a whale, you get to see what a typical whaling ship will do and the positions and actions that everyone assumes. However, at this point, Ahab reveals that he has been keeping a secret from the rest of the entire ship by bringing out a harpooner and crew of his very own that he has been hiding, something that is very unusual. This shows that from the very beginning Ahab has had ulterior motives than what was originally described to the crew. This reveal is a change of events that brings this story from one about an ordinary voyage upon a shaking ship to one about a peculiar Captain and his mission of revenge upon the one great white whale, Moby-Dick.

In the middle of the story, Ishmael, the narrator, stops the flow of events and spends an entire lengthy chapter talking about cetology, the study of whales. This is a common occurrence in this book, it seems as if Ishmael is almost distracted with the story of being out at sea, that this story he is reciting is so boring he throws in a jumble of more work to keep the audience going. Really though, he is giving himself credibility. He is showing the audience in a subtle way that he is capable of telling the story of Moby-Dick due to his expertise in the science and classification of whales. It is chapters like these that are actually very important to the development of the story and the characters.

I’ve found that through reading I was drawing a lot of comparisons between the story line and characters in Moby-Dick with those in other stories. One comparison that really stuck out to me was that of Captain Ahab and the one and only Great Gatsby. We as an audience have not seen Ahab yet, only have heard about him. The characters sign on to this whaling ship without seeing him, and they even set sail without seeing him. They don’t even catch sight of him until several days out at sea. But it was the mystery surrounding Ahab that made him Gatsby-like. Many different stories were told by multiple people about the man and it seemed difficult to decipher what was true and not. Like everybody going to Gatsby’s parties without seeing or knowing Gatsby, the same thing happened with sailors signing on to ship out with Ahab without ever seeing him. And once he finally does make an appearance, he is very impressionable and definitely a strong, charming, even manipulate force.

I began reading Moby-Dick and I was confident. I felt like the story was developing at a good pace but then I realized that I was over a hundred pages in and they hadn’t even gotten on to the boat yet. I knew that this book would be filled with so much content and details that by the final outcome, it would be a great novel due to the depth of it itself. Melville spends a good deal of time introducing and characterizing the different characters in this novel, even if the don’t play major roles. This makes the story into a visual and it becomes clear in the reader’s head what they are actually seeing.

The fictional character I would love to take to prom is Hazel Grace Lancaster from The Fault In Our Stars. I'd probably have to ask her more than once, seeing as she'd initially turn me away, but that's okay. You see, Hazel Grace is dying, and that has made her wise beyond her years, but it has also shut her out from the rest of the world. While she may think I'd be asking her out of pity, seeing as she's the girl that always carries around an oxygen tank, she'd actually be downgrading big time by going with me. She's thoughtful and funny and so above me, and spending just one night with her would make me reevaluate everything and make me a better person. She's the ultimate prom date.

I went to Barnes & Noble to pick up a copy of Moby-Dick for myself. I was planning on starting to read it the following day, seeing as I would have a lot of time during an ISS I was to be serving. I wanted to get as much background as I could before starting the actual novel so I read the entire 18 page Introduction. It took me almost all of first hour to read and it finished with almost a challenge. It was telling me good luck reading this book because you're going to need it. That challenge was all I needed and I began to read this monster. "Call me Ishmael."

Whale of a book Going into this project I had no ideas about what book I would read. After doing some quick searches on different books that could work, and looking at other book suggestions based on those books, there was one that stuck out and intrigued me, Moby-Dick. I knew that Moby-Dick was a long book but I also knew that if I could get through it then there would be numerous criticisms and resources I could use. I then started to do some research on this book and I realized that my attitude was all wrong. Like many people, I was thinking that Moby-Dick was just a lot of pages to get through, but in reality all of those pages make it one of the greatest novels in history. You may know that there is a movie to be released in the coming year called In the Heart of the Sea. This movie is based on a book of the same name written by Nathaniel Philbrick about the real life story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex, which inspired Melville to write Moby-Dick. Yet that's not all Philbrick has done in regards to this story, he has also written another book entitled Why Read Moby-Dick? An entire book on why you should read another book! I looked a little into this book as well, and after seeing just how important Moby-Dick really is, I knew that it was something I just had to read.