Characters
The crew-members of the Pequod are carefully drawn stylizations of human types and habits; critics have often described the crew as a "self-enclosed universe". There are 30 crew members, and as there were thirty states in the union at the time, it has been suggested that, in its diversity, Melville meant the Pequod to be a metaphor for America.
Read more about this topic: Moby Dick
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“The Nature of Familiar Letters, written, as it were, to the Moment, while the Heart is agitated by Hopes and Fears, on Events undecided, must plead an Excuse for the Bulk of a Collection of this Kind. Mere Facts and Characters might be comprised in a much smaller Compass: But, would they be equally interesting?”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.”
—Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936)
“Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)