How Moby-Dick or, The Whale drew on Jeremiah
A documented line of influence: Herman Melville demonstrably engaged Jeremiah’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Jeremiah
Jeremiah · c. 580 BCE
BibleThe influenced
Moby-Dick or, The Whale
Herman Melville · 1851
The Age of the NovelRelevance
5/10
On Moby-Dick or, The Whale’s page
- The ship that plucks Ishmael from the sea is named for a verse in Jeremiah
- The Rachel, mourning her lost children and refusing comfort, comes straight out of Jeremiah 31:15 — Melville seals the rescue with the prophet's own grief
- Father Mapple's thundering "woe" interjections draw on the same prophetic register; Jeremiah is the voice underneath Melville's doom
On Jeremiah’s page
- Melville named the ship that saves Ishmael after one of this book's most piercing lines
- The Rachel — searching for her lost children, refusing to be comforted — enacts Jeremiah 31:15 directly: "Rachel weeping for her children, because they were not"
- Father Mapple's drumbeat of "woe" is prophetic borrowing too, pulled from Jeremiah and his fellow prophets