Mind of Moog

The Man of Sorrows: Ishmael and Melville’s Misericord He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. -Friedrich Nietzsche,  Beyond Good and Evil The autonomous individual does not treat his own conclusions and decisions as authoritative but chooses with his eyes open, and then keeps his eyes open.    He has the courage to admit that he may have been wrong even about matters of the greatest importance. -Walter Kaufmann,  Without Guilt and Justice              This paper will examine Melville’s democratic tragedy as a call for fellow feeling in the face of man’s insuperable longing for wholeness and universal suffering (Milder 23). Specifically, I will examine  Moby-Dick  in relation to the concept of misericord: a unique form of sympathy, associated with heartfelt commiseration, as well as mercy...

A Bar Too Far: Arthur Dimmesdale’s Near Evasion of Earthly Judgement ​ Hester Pyrnne and Arthur Dimmesdale committed adultery, sinned, transgressed, and violated the law together.  The veracity of these statements depends on one’s perspective; some of these claims are virtual   certaintie s  while others are less clear.  That they violated the law and committed adultery can be traced to the letter of the law and their adulterous progeny, respectively.  The nature  and degree  of their transgressions and sins are less clear .  Taken at face value, their society’s conflation of law and religion simplifies these issues greatly: transgression and sin become equivalent.   While the narrator is dismissive of the equation of law and religion, the story seems to affirm the necessity of this arrangement by constraining Hester within the iron mores of society.  Hester was doubly doomed: Chillingsworth had anticipated her escape attempt (had Arthur...