Grace Lee Boggs Quote
Looking at Moby Dick as a mid-twentieth century revolutionist who was also a lover of Shakespeare, he had come to the conclusion that Melville’s masterpiece was the first comprehensive statement in literature of the conditions and perspectives for the survival of Western civilization.28 He saw Ahab, the mad captain taking the Pequod to the bottom of the ocean in pursuit of the white whale, as the forerunner of the totalitarian dictators of our epoch. The crew and the harpooners represented the creative power of the masses; the two officers, Starbuck and Stubb, the helplessness of labor and liberal leaders; while Ishmael symbolized the powerlessness and isolation of the intellectual.
Grace Lee Boggs
Looking at Moby Dick as a mid-twentieth century revolutionist who was also a lover of Shakespeare, he had come to the conclusion that Melville’s masterpiece was the first comprehensive statement in literature of the conditions and perspectives for the survival of Western civilization.28 He saw Ahab, the mad captain taking the Pequod to the bottom of the ocean in pursuit of the white whale, as the forerunner of the totalitarian dictators of our epoch. The crew and the harpooners represented the creative power of the masses; the two officers, Starbuck and Stubb, the helplessness of labor and liberal leaders; while Ishmael symbolized the powerlessness and isolation of the intellectual.
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