Herman Melville's masterpiece Moby Dick has become one of the most ingenious novels of the nineteenth century. It combines themes of fate, religion, work ethic, and race throughout the entire novel. Melville was before his time with his ideas of not judging a person only on their race. Melville believed that there was good in every person, and he illustrated this through his works, including Moby Dick. Moby Dick was published in 1851, a time when slavery was at a climax and the issue of race was a continuing conflict in America (Parker 55). Melville's characters Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo, Pip, and Fedallah are all of nonwhite decent, being from either oriental, black, or a mixture of many different cultures. Ishmael befriends the cannibal Queequeg which was a shock to many townspeople to see such different people as friends. The uncharacteristic ideas of race, religion and fate are shown throughout the entire book.

The first sign of separation and discrimination of race occurs in the second and third chapters. Ishmael, while looking for a place to stay, enters an African-American church talking about "the blac

Percival, M.O. A Reading of Moby Dick. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.

Elliff, Benjamin. "A Critical Review of Herman Melville's Moby Dick" 2001. 29 Nov 2003

Parker, Hershel. Herman Melville : A Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

Some topics in this essay:
Moby Dick, Captain Ahab, Pip Fedallah, Indians Queequeg, Weird Sister's, South Pacific, River Connecticut, Herman Melville, Gabriel Elijah, Peleg Bildad, moby dick, herman melville, captain ahab, white whale, crew captain ahab, native american, african-american church, characters book, gk hall, race religion, ishmael whalers,