| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Cover -- The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick -- Copyright -- Preface -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Ivory Leg -- The Arts of Aggrievement -- Wounding, Disability, and the Use of Prostheses -- Islam as Prosthesis -- Dismemberment and Political Bodies -- To Dismember the Dismemberer -- PART I: STAGING DISABILITY -- 1. Ahab, Walking -- Coffin-Taps -- Amputation Nation -- Surgeons at Sea -- Shakespeare and the Comedy of Normate Thinking -- The Power of Assistance -- My Arms and My Legs -- 2. Bone to Bone -- Trauma and Prosthetic Time -- Making Prostheses -- Phantom Pain |
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Comparative Anatomies -- Figuring Revenge -- PART II: PROSTHETIC IDENTITIES -- 3. The Phantom Fedallah -- A Muffled Mystery -- The Islam of Democracy -- American Turks -- Phantoms, Prophets, and Assassins -- The Prosthetics of Fate -- 4. Ishmael, Salaaming -- The Prosthetic Structure of Moby-Dick -- The Phantom Hand -- Ishmael's Islamic Moods -- Ishmael and Racial Aggrievement -- The Narrator's Prosthesis -- PART III: BODIES POLITIC -- 5. The Unnatural Stump -- Cruel as a Turk -- The Value of a One-ArmedWhale -- Flask and the Capitalist Crusade -- Reservoirs of Oil |
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Agents of Terror, Pirates of the Sphere -- 6. Eternal Hacking -- Democracy's Lopped Limbs -- The Cold War Captain -- The Marble Masthead -- The Islamicized Gaze -- Ahab, Befooled -- Conclusion: Conclusion -- Notes -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Conclusion -- Index |
| Summary |
"The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick examines how disability shapes one of the world's most iconic novels. For generations, readers have viewed Captain Ahab's whalebone leg as a symbol of what he lacks, the limb he lost fighting the white whale off the coast of Japan. David Haven Blake considers the artificial leg in a historical, medical, and geo-political context. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book situates Ahab's prosthesis at the center of the novel's reflections on wounding, embodiment, and the role that Islamic cultures play in American narratives of revenge. Sawed from a sperm whale's jaw, Ahab's artificial leg helps him stand, walk, and fight. But the prosthesis that marks him as different also creates the basis for his "irresistible dictatorship." Blake connects the novel's prosthetic arts with the use of Islamic imagery in 19th century America to characterize overwhelming power. He identifies the character Fedallah as the captain's most important prosthesis on ship, as the hair-turbaned soothsayer pilots the captain to his final battle with Moby Dick. Spanning each stage of Melville's career, The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick meditates on democracy, aggrievement, and the challenges of living in a global age"-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed |
| Subject |
Melville, Herman, 1819-1891. Moby Dick.
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Ahab, Captain (Fictitious character)
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Prosthesis in literature.
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Disabilities in literature.
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| Genre/Form |
Literary criticism.
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Critiques littéraires.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
2024030486 |
| ISBN |
9780197780534 |
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0197780539 |
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9780197780527 |
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0197780520 |
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