Abstract

This thesis examines Moby-Dick through the lens of existential phenomenology, with a focus on explicating Ishmael’s character in relation to the philosophical concept of the understanding of being. Establishing Hubert Dreyfus' interpretation of how works of art disclose understandings of being as a critical philosophical framework, this thesis prioritizes literary analysis of Melville's Moby-Dick and Homer's The Odyssey over philosophical exposition. This literary analysis, based in the critical perspective of phenomenological ontology, investigates and compares phenomenological accounts of mood and polytheism in Melville and Homer. Brief analyses are also made of Dante, as a representative of a monotheistic understanding of being, and the contemporary existential context of Moby-Dick's ontological framework, as related to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. This approach analyzes the experiential phenomenology of Ishmael’s attunement to mood, his relationship with Queequeg, and his interpretations of the sperm whale, culminating in an analytic of his accounts of worldhood, sacredness, and polytheism.