|
| media_type = Print | awards = | isbn = | oclc = | dewey = | congress = | preceded_by = Redburn | followed_by = Moby-Dick }} ''White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War'' is the fifth book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1850.〔Hayford, Harrison, "Chronology," which is included at the back of all three volumes of the Library of America edition of Melville's writings.〕 The book is based on the author's fourteen months service in the United States Navy, aboard the frigate ''USS "Neversink"'' (actually the ''USS United States)''. ==Overview== Based on Melville's experiences as a common seaman aboard the frigate from 1843 to 1844 and stories that other sailors told him, the novel is severely critical of virtually every aspect of American naval life and thus qualifies as Melville's most politically strident work. At the time, though, the one thing that journalists and politicians focused on in the novel was its graphic descriptions of flogging and the horrors caused by its arbitrary use; in fact, because Harper & Bros. made sure the book got into the hands of every member of Congress, ''White-Jacket'' was instrumental in abolishing flogging in the U.S. Navy forever. Melville scholars also acknowledge the huge number of parallels between ''White-Jacket'' and ''Billy Budd'' and view the former as a rich source for possible interpretations of the latter.〔Hayford, Harrison and Sealts, Jr., Merton, eds. ''Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)'', "Editors' Introduction", p. 31. ISBN 0-226-32132-0.〕 The symbolism of the color white, introduced in this novel in the form of the narrator's jacket, is more fully expanded upon in ''Moby-Dick,'' where it becomes an all-encompassing "blankness."〔Melville, Herman and Bryant, ed. ''Tales, Poems, and Other Writings'', p. xxv. ISBN 0-679-64105-X.〕 The mixture of journalism, history, and fiction; the presentation of a sequence of striking characters; the metaphor of a sailing ship as the world in miniature—all of these prefigure his next novel, ''Moby-Dick.'' 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「White-Jacket」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|