198 (8 posts behind)
From a 10th grade lesson about Herman Melville's Moby Dick
"Moby Dick is full of symbolism. Moby Dick is an impersonal force that can
represent God or Ahab's futile quest for vengeance. Since we cannot read its
thoughts and feelings, Moby Dick is inscrutable. Ahab is unable to defeat the
great white whale, and it consistently thwarts Ahab's quest. This ties in as a
symbol of God. God's will is inscrutable. There is also physical manifestation
of this inscrutability. For most of the novel, we are unable to see the whole
whale, most of it is hidden in the depts of the ocean. This inability to really
see the whale or to really understand the whale can be seen as humanity's
relationship with God."
Barak Obama has stated that Moby Dick is his favorite book...
Ronald Reagan's favorite book was Whittaker Chambers' Witness.
"Perhaps the greatest work of political biography of the 20th century. Chambers spent many years in the Communist underground in Baltimore, supporting a cell of spies and subversives. Eventually he came to the Cross and escaped the despair of the Communist enterprise. His testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities exposed the depth of the Communist penetration of American institutions, and led eventually to the perjury conviction of Alger Hiss, then a respected diplomat, once the founding Secretary General of the UN"
Could it be that your favorite book reflects something about your own heart?
chris
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