Here are my notes for my Moby Dick/Digital Culture essay. I am a very visual person, plus I am a doodler, so here are some notes that I created while I was coming up with ideas.
I know that this is probably very difficult to read, but on this sheet I have created a web of potential ideas for essay topics and quotes that I could use from the novel. As I was brainstorming, I started to think about how in a way Ishmael, being the narrator of the novel, and the sole survivor to tell the tale, he has the opportunity to craft the story however he wants, and can shape his persona however he wants. (This is probably sounding like I don't know that Ishmael is fictional....) But, would it make sense to write an essay about how the way that Ishmael presents himself is similar to how people create their persons in through digital culture. Is this way off base?? What do you think?
I was somewhat considering this topic as well. What I struggled with (and what you may have figured out more than I did) was how to find out what this tells us. Perhaps Ishmael is not the most reliable narrator. So what does this mean for the digital age? That none of us are reliable narrators online? I think this could be a super interesting paper, as long as you can really narrow down the significance of him shaping his persona. Just a thought. Love your doodling though!
ReplyDeleteI really like it! I think it's especially relevant as we see Ishmael interact with all types of themes and topics that we encounter in the digital world. For example, we see pre-Queequeg view of religion versus his reactions to religion after they're bosom friends. We also see Ishmael's passion for learning and exploring the study of whales and how some of his information is not exactly the most sound (calling a whale a "fish"). These are just a couple examples but this could easily be related to the way our digital identity is formed as our opinions can be influenced by our online social connections and finding less-than-truthful information online as we search out our interests! Great topic!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kelsey's comment, and I also thought about how in the digital world, we are all trying to create personas as Ishmael did, but in his story, there were already some basics there. He created the narrative among all of the facts about whaling, etc. and I think it is kind of the same in digital culture. The digital world is already there as an anchor or an outline, and we are creating out own personas/stories within that so, like Ishmael, we just need to find some way to create a persona that will last. Hopefully that makes sense or gives you some other ideas!
ReplyDeleteI think this would make an interesting paper. You could maybe look at it through a psychological lens as well, looking at certain theories of identity construction and then how that relates to Ishmael and how it is similar to what the Digital World is doing to us. But yes, this is very relevant, even if ishmael is fictional, and essentially an extension of Melvilles mind, because of its theoretical significance...sort of like a big hypothetical "what if".
ReplyDeleteYou just gave me an idea for my paper. Thank you! I think you are actually right on track, because Ishmael, as the narrator, changes perspectives a little bit while the story is going on. Sometimes it's clear that he is narrating and there is a lot of first person narration; other times he seems to take himself out of the picture completely and the narration is third person and more away of everything around--two very different perspectives even though it's still the same person.
ReplyDeleteThank you everyone for your feedback. Super helpful!!!
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