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 | These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items. | |
YMMV: Moby-Dick
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- Anvilicious
- Acceptable Targets: Established albinos as one of them.
- Accidental Innuendo: It was noted even at the time it was published that some of the symbolism and word choices were a bit suggestive, which Melville apparently didn't notice until later pointed out to him.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: Captain Ahab — revenge-obsessed madman or Tragic Hero or Both.
- Crowning Moment of Awesome: Queequeg manages to harpoon an oil slick.
- It Was His Sled: The ending.
- Mainstream Obscurity: Moby was a whale hunter. Everyone knows that. Not so many people have read the books.
- Values Dissonance: Whether or not you approve of whaling, it is more controversial today than it was when Moby Dick was published, what with environmentalism and concern for endangered species.
- The story does explicitly discuss whether Man could hunt whales to extinction. Already their numbers are diminishing, but the author's opinion is that they'll avoid Man by swimming North to the icy oceans, and so will always be able to evade extermination. It's an opinion based on flawed biology; given better science it could have gone the other way. Even so, Melville gives consideration to it.
- Vindicated by History: This work in particular took several decades to attain the critical status it enjoys today.
- In the Reader's Digest: World's Best Reading edition, Thomas Fleming states in the Afterword that critics scoffed at the idea of someone going as far as Ahab did, and everyone around simply obeying...until they lived through World War I.
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