Avatars of Moby Dick

In our recent class discussions about creating our own internet avatars and how that defines us, I thought about all the avatars Moby Dick creates for itself.

First, the characters. Ishmael right off the bat creates his avatar by saying "Call me Ishmael." He makes a biblical allusion to call him the son of Abraham. Then there's his character development. He is educated, religious, but then rambles and goes on tangents about education and religion and whaling. All of this creates an image of him. Who is he really then? This jouney has become his Harvard. What does that say about who he is or what he wants others to think about him?

Second, the book itself. We have already discussed how Moby Dick has elements of an allegory, epic, novel, and recently play. Which avatar do we focus on? The fact that this is mostly an epic novel can make readers focus on its purpose as an attempt to harness nature and make a deep connection withnature in the story. If we focus on avatar allegory, readers focus on its purpose as a story with symbols to represent abstract ideas. As a book with stage direction like a play we see building drama. All of these avatars combined though is what makes the book a unique and forces us to look at ALL these elements.

So with our own avatars, whether on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr, each avatar reflects different pieces of ourselves. Maybe the same way having so many avatars on the internet feels overwhelming also reflects how the avatars of Moby Dick makes it a difficult book to classify and overwhelms us with its many definitions.