매플 목사의 설교를 통해서 본 허먼 멜빌의 『모비딕』

초록

This paper presents a new perspective on Father Mapple and his sermon in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Mapple is the preacher of Whaleman’s Chapel in New Bedford, in which Ishmael happens to visit and listens to his sermon on the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament. Different from the traditional interpretations of the sermon, this paper presents a comparison of it with the original text which shows the clear differences between the two which can be evidence that his sermon is not quite orthodox or Calvinistic. The unique theology of the sermon, this paper asserts, shows the author’s own theology when he wrote the novel. It also provides the theological framework of the Pequod, which, like Jonah, contains both a great defiance and hatred toward God (Captain Ahab) and self-denying obedience toward god-like Ahab (Ishmael and sailors).

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