Journal of Northeastern University(Social Science) ›› 2020, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (3): 121-126.DOI: 10.15936/j.cnki.1008-3758.2020.03.016

• Linguistics and Literature • Previous Articles    

Immanence: Postmodern Ethical Narratives in Moby Dick from the Perspective of Deleuze's Philosophy

CHEN Li-lin   

  1. (School of Foreign Languages, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China)
  • Received:2019-07-10 Revised:2019-07-10 Online:2020-05-25 Published:2020-05-25
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Abstract: Deleuze's philosophy provides a metaphysical basis for understanding Moby Dick, and opens up a postmodern ethical interpretation path for the novel. From the perspective of Deleuzian immanent ethics, Moby Dick, as the structure-other, regulates the objective existence of all the characters, and Ahab and Moby Dick show a dual and mutual becoming-animal relationship. There seems to be a break in Moby Dick with regard to its levels of idea and content, which are in their essence in consistent with each other. The concepts of structure-other and becoming-animal free Ahab and Moby Dick from the transcendence down into the experience world, while at the same time restore the existence of differences that belong to the marginalized sailors. The revenge narratives of Moby Dick thus become a case of group psychology. The structure-other, becoming-animal and group psychology constitute the triple dimension of the immanent ethical narratives of Moby Dick.

Key words: immanent ethics, Moby Dick, structure-other, becoming-animal, group psychology

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