Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

2680

Date

2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

English

Concentration

Literary and Cultural Studies

Committee Chair

Verner D. Mitchell

Committee Member

Lorinda B. Cohoon

Committee Member

Ladrica Menson-Furr

Committee Member

Angela B. Thevenot

Abstract

ABSTRACT This dissertation deeply explores characterization within Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. Specifically, this study focuses on the heavily tattooed character Queequeg and his treatment throughout the novel. Sentence by sentence, words and their connotations are analyzed to determine if words associated with Queequeg are postive, negative or neutral. The findings of the study lead to a gathering of words into groups, some groups having overlapping features. Word groups discovered and listed from negative to postive are titled: 1) violence 2) animal 3) negative wording 4) cultural ignorance 5) debatable language 6) positive/negative combinations 7) male gaze 8) Queequeg others 9) contextual dichotomy 10) neutral/factual 11) tone change 12) positive wording and 13) cultural understanding. When each word group is counted we find positive wording outnumbers negative wording by more than two-to-one.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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