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Confidence Man

Confidence man

:"Confidence man" is also another a term for con man. The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade was the last major novel by Herman Melville, the American writer and author of Moby-Dick. Published on April 1, 1857 (presumably the exact day of the novel's setting), The Confidence-Man was Melville's tenth major work in eleven years. The novel portrays a Canterbury Tales-style group of steamboat passengers whose interlocking stories are told as they travel up the Mississippi River. After the novel's publication, Melville turned from professional writing and became a professional lecturer, mainly addressing his worldwide travels. He continued to write poetry, but published no major prose work after The Confidence-Man. The novel's title refers to its central character, an ambiguous figure who sneaks aboard a Mississippi steamboat on April Fool's Day. This stranger attempts to test the confidence of the passengers, whose varied reactions constitute the bulk of the text. The Confidence-Man uses the Mississippi River as a metaphor for those broader aspects of American and human identity that unify the otherwise disparate characters. Melville also employs the river's fluidity as a reflection and backdrop of the shifting identities of his "confidence man." The novel is written as cultural satire, allegory, and a metaphysical treatise, dealing with themes of sincerity, identity, morality, religiosity, economic materialism, irony, and cynicism. Many critics have placed The Confidence-Man alongside Melville's Moby-Dick and Bartleby the Scrivener as a precursor to 20th-century literary preoccupations with nihilism, existentialism, and absurdism. Melville's choice to set the novel on April Fool's Day underlines the work's satirical nature, and potentially reflects Melville's worldview, once expressed in a letter to his friend Henry Savage: "All that happens to a man in this life is only by way of a joke."

External links

- [http://www.melville.org/hmconman.htm Critical reaction to and a publishing history of The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade] from [http://www.melville.org/melville.htm The Life and Works of Herman Melville]
- [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/MelConf.html Online text of the novel] from the Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library

Con-man

A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short (Also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the "mark") usually with the goal of financial or other gain. The confidence trickster, con man, scam artist or con artist often works with one or more accomplices called shills, who try to encourage the mark by pretending to believe the trickster. In a traditional con, the mark is encouraged to believe that they will obtain money dishonestly by cheating a third party, and is stunned to find that due to what appears to be an error in pulling off the scam they are the one who loses money; in more general use, the term con is used for any fraud in which the victim is tricked into losing money by false promises of gain. Some confidence tricks exploit the greed and dishonesty of their victims working off an old proverb: "You can't cheat an honest man". Often, the mark tries to out-cheat the conmen, only to discover that they have been manipulated into this from the start. Sometimes conmen rely on naïve individuals who put their confidence in get-rich-quick schemes such as 'too good to be true' investments. It may take years for the wider community to discover that such 'investment' schemes are bogus, and usually it is too late as many people have lost their life savings in something they have been confident of investing in.

Origin of the term

Though dishonesty for financial gain had existed long before, the specific term "confidence man" was first coined in 1849 by the New York Herald to describe the deceptions of William Thompson. Thompson, dressed in genteel fashion, would approach wealthy New Yorkers and, after brief conversations, ask, "Have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?" The mark, placing "confidence" in Thompson's honesty, would lend him his watch, only to have Thompson never return. Thompson's arrest was a nationwide sensation, and the term "confidence man" passed into widespread use, including the title of Herman Melville's 1857 novel The Confidence-Man.

Well-known confidence tricks

- Three Card Monte, The Three-Card Trick, Follow The Lady or Find the Lady, which is (except for the props) essentially the same as the probably centuries-older shell game or thimblerig. The trickster shows three playing cards to the audience, one of which is a queen (the lady), then places the cards face-down, shuffles them around and invites the audience to bet on which one is the queen. At first the audience are skeptical, so the shill places a bet and the scammer allows them to win. This is sometimes enough to entice the audience to place bets, but the trickster uses sleight of hand to ensure that they always lose, unless the con man decides to let them win to lure them into betting even more. The 'mark' loses whenever the dealer chooses to make them lose.
- The Fiddle Game preys upon the greed inherent in most people. A pair of con men work together, one going in to an expensive restaurant in slightly shabby clothes, eating, and claiming to have left his wallet at home, which is nearby. As collateral, the con man leaves his only worldly possession, a fiddle (violin) he uses to make enough money for himself to live and eat. He leaves, and the second con man swoops in, offers an outrageously large amount (e.g., $50,000) for such a rare instrument, and then looks at his watch and runs off to an appointment, leaving behind his card for the mark to call him when the fiddle owner returns. The mark's greed comes into play when the "poor man" comes back, having gotten the money to pay his meal and ensure the return of his violin. The mark, "knowing" he has an offer on the table, then buys the violin from the fiddle player (who "reluctantly" sells it eventually, for say $5,000), and we are left with two con men $2,500 richer, and a maitre'd with a cheap wooden instrument. (This trick is also detailed in the Neil Gaiman novel, American Gods.)
- The Spanish Prisoner scam, essentially the same as the Nigerian money transfer fraud, also takes advantage of the victim's greed. The basic come-on involves entreating the mark to aid in retrieving some stolen money from its hiding place. The victim sometimes goes in figuring they can cheat the con artists out of their money: anyone trying this has already fallen for the essential con, by believing that the money is there to steal. Closely related is the Fake Lottery, in which the victim is told they have won a large lottery prize in another country, and that, in order to collect the funds, legal or other fees of several thousand dollars are required in advance. The victim pays the fees, but never sees the supposed winnings. See also Black money scam.
- The early-20th century favorite The Big Store, around which scam the plot of the film The Sting revolves. Big store scams are described in detail in David W. Maurer's The Big Con (See references), on which the film was loosely based. They often involved teams of dozens of con artists working together with elaborate sets and costumes.
- The Pigeon drop, also featured early in the film The Sting, wherein the 'mark' or 'pigeon' "assists" an elderly, weak or infirm stranger to keep their money safe for them. In the process, the stranger (actually a confidence trickster) "puts his money with" the pigeon's money, i.e., in an envelope, briefcase, or sack, which the pigeon is then entrusted with. The money is actually not put into the sack or envelope, but is switched for a bag full of newspaper, etc. The pigeon is enticed to "make off with" the con man's money through the greed element and various theatrics, but in actuality, the pigeon is fleeing from his own money, which the con man still has (or has handed off to an accomplice).
- The pyramid scheme (Also known as a Ponzi scheme). See also Matrix sale.
- Insurance fraud - the con artist tricks the mark into damaging, for example, the con artist's car, or injuring the con artist (In a manner that the con artist can exaggerate). The con artist fraudulently collects a large sum of money from the mark's insurance policy, even though they intentionally caused the accident.
- Pig-in-a-poke originating in the late Middle Ages, when meat was scarce, but apparently rats and cats were not. The con entails a sale of a "suckling pig", in a "poke" (bag). The bag ostensibly containing a live healthy little pig, but actually contains a cat (Not particularly prized as a source of meat, and at any rate, quite unlikely to grow to be a large hog). If one "buys a pig in a poke" (a common colloquial expression in the English language, meaning "to be a sucker"), the person has bought something of lesser value than was assumed. This confidence trick is also the origin of the expressions: "Let the cat out of the bag" (meaning to reveal that which is secret), and "left holding the bag" (meaning to find oneself with nothing for their efforts, as the cat is quite likely to flee when the bag is opened).
- Many religious cults and even some more mainstream religious sects have been described by their critics as confidence tricks. It is alleged that their aim is to obtain money from their followers by deception. It can be unclear, however, whether they are doing it for con-artist reason's or for religious/welfare reasons. If the cult leader can be proven to use any form of deception or trickery to garner funds, then it is a con.
- Pseudoscience and Snake oil. Some popular psychology confidence tricksters make money by falsely claiming to improve reading speed and comprehension using speed reading courses by fooling the consumer with inappropriate skimming and general knowledge tests. These popular psychology tricksters often employ popular assumptions about the brain and the cerebral hemispheres that are scientifically wrong, but attractive and easy to believe. Similar scams involve the use of brain machines to alter brain waves, and intelligence amplification through balancing the mind and body. See neurofeedback
- Psychic surgery is a con game in which the trickster uses sleight of hand to pretend to remove bits of malignant growths from the mark's body. A common form of medical fraud in underdeveloped countries, it imperils the victims, who may fail to seek competent medical attention. (The movie Man on the Moon depicts comedian Andy Kaufman undergoing psychic surgery.)
- Glasses drop is a scam in which the scammer will intentionally bump into the mark and drop a pair of glasses that have already been broken. He/she will claim that the glasses were broken by the clumsiness of the mark, and demand money to replace them.

Extra finesse

Many con men employ extra tricks to keep the victim from going to the police:
- Illegal money. A common ploy of investment scammers is to encourage the victim to use money that has been concealed from the tax authorities. The victim cannot go to the authorities without revealing that they have committed tax fraud.
- Illegal enterprise. Many swindles involve a minor element of crime or some other misdeed. The victim is made to think that they will gain money by helping fraudsters get huge sums out of a country (the classic Nigerian scam). The victim cannot go to the police without revealing that they planned to commit a crime themselves. Similar tricks can be played on people shopping for pirated software, illegal pornographic images, bootleg music, drugs, firearms or other forbidden or controlled goods.
- Embarrassing enterprise. If the victim loses a small sum only, they may be unwilling to contact the authorities if the circumstances are embarrassing, e.g. if they would look like an idiot or if their spouse would find out that they paid lots of money to access a website of (worthless or nonexisting) pornographic material.
- Stolen Cheques. A recent twist on the Nigerian fraud scheme, the mark is told he his helping someone overseas collect "debts" from corporate clients. Large cheques stolen from businesses are mailed to the victim. These cheques are altered to reflect the victim's name, and the mark is then asked to cash them and transfer all but a percentage of the funds (His commission) to the fraudster. The cheques are often completely genuine, except that the "pay to" information has been expertly changed. This exposes the victim not only to enormous debt when the bank reclaims the money from their account, but also to criminal charges for transacting the forged cheques.

Famous convicted and alleged con artists

Note: Some inclusions in this list may be disputed.
- Frank Abagnale, masqueraded as a pilot, doctor and professor
- Margita Bangova, beggar who earned upwards of CAD $2,500 per week
- Howard Berg, with the same con as Kevin Trudeau (see below)
- Lou Blonger, organized massive bunco ring in Denver in early 1900's
- Tony & Sharon Bonicci, a.k.a. Christie & McLean, Australian confidence artists, who rip off innocent elderly people for all their savings and possessions
- Bernie Cornfeld ran what is to date the greatest scam in history, taking in just under $2.5 billion in what was later realized to be a Ponzi scheme.
- Tino De Angelis, who sold rights to $175 million in soybean oil stored in tanks, which was actually a thin layer of oil floating on water.
- John Edward, of the tv show Crossing Over
- Louis Enricht, U.S. chemist who claimed to have made a substitute for gasoline
- Uri Geller, a famous but controversial alleged psychic and television personality
- Robert Hendy-Freegard, British confidence artist who kidnapped people by telling them he was an MI5 agent and they were being hunted by terrorists, then took them on the run, conned them out of money and emotionally manipulated them; convicted in 2005[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/4114640.stm]
- Susanna Mildred Hill, U.S. woman who fooled potential suitors
- Megan Ireland, Australian con artist and Lottery scammer
- Kaz DeMille Jacobsen, Australian fraudulent 9/11 "motivational speaker"
- Henri Lemoine, French diamond faker
- Matthew Lesko, who claimed that there's free money from the United States Government
- Victor Lustig, sold the Eiffel Tower
- Gregor MacGregor, Scottish conman who tried to attract investment and settlers for a non-existent country of Poyais
- Curtis Malinowski, collected millions of dollars from investors and home buyers with his con businesses.
- George Parker, who sold New York monuments
- Charles Ponzi, the inventor of the pyramid scheme
- Raymond Price, British confidence artist who cons people out of money by telling them his car has broken down and he needs a train fare home; mentioned in the book Join Me-[http://www.join-me.co.uk/raymondprice.html the book]
- Christopher Skase
- Billie Sol Estes, who was paid to produce millions in quotas of cotton, which never existed. LBJ was implicated by Estes in taking payoffs to ignore the scam, which took place in Texas.
- William Thompson, read for more info.
- Kevin Trudeau, who claimed to be able to cure brain damage, increase reading speed in customers up to and beyond the rate of 10000 words per minute, and develop photographic memory.
- Joseph Weil, a.k.a. The Yellow Kid, one of the inspirations for the Academy-award winning film The Sting.

Confidence tricks in the movies and television

- The Rainmaker. 1956. Produced by Paul Nathan. Paramount.
- The Hustler. 1962. Directed by Robert Rossen.
- The Music Man. 1962. Produced and Directed by Morton da Costa. Warner.
- The Flim-Flam Man. 1967. Produced by Lawrence Turman; Directed by Irvin Kershner and Yakima Canutt. Twentieth Century Fox.
- The Italian Job. 1969. Directed by Peter Collinson
- Skin Game. 1971. James Garner & Louis Gossett. Dir. by Paul Bogart.
- Paper Moon. 1973. Directed and produced by Peter Bogdanovitch. Paramount.
- The Sting. 1973. Directed by George Roy Hill. Universal.
- Cheers. 1982-1993. NBC. Featured a recurring "Flimflam man" character, Harry 'The Hat' Gittes
- House of Games. 1987. Produced by Michael Hausman; Directed by David Mamet. Orion.
- Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. 1988. Directed by Frank Oz.
- The Grifters. 1991. Produced by Martin Scorsese; Directed by Stephen Frears. Miramax Films.
- The Pest. 1997. Directed by Paul Miller.
- The Spanish Prisoner. 1997. Directed by David Mamet.
- Blue Streak. 1999. Directed by Les Mayfield.
- Man on the Moon. 1999. Produced by Danny DeVito; Directed by Miloš Forman.
- Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens). 2000. Directed by Fabián Bielinsky.
- Boiler Room. 2000. Directed by Ben Younger.
- [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0223954/ The Prime Gig]. 2000. Directed by Gregory Mosher.
- Bandits. 2001. Directed by Barry Levinson.
- Heist. 2001. Directed by David Mamet.
- Heartbreakers. 2001. Directed by David Mirkin.
- Ocean's Eleven. 2001. Directed by Steven Soderbergh.
- The Score. 2001. Directed by Frank Oz.
- The Great Money Caper, 2002, a Simpsons episode based around grifting.
- Catch Me If You Can. 2002. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
- Confidence. 2003. Directed by James Foley.
- Matchstick Men. 2003.
- Out of Time. 2003. Produced by Neal H. Moritz; Directed by Carl Franklin.
- [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362526/ Criminal]. 2004. Directed by Gregory Jacobs.
- [http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/conskylerstone/about.jhtml A Con], 2005, created by [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1043126/ Skyler Stone].
- Ocean's Twelve. 2004. Directed by Steven Soderbergh.
- Hustle, British TV Series. 2004.
- Sawyer in the ABC TV-Series "Lost" has a background of a Con Artist.
Confidence tricks in literature
(Very incomplete)
- Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man.
- Many of the crime novels of Jim Thompson involve confidence artists.
- Joyce Carol Oates's My Heart Laid Bare features a family of confidence artists.
- Neil Gaiman's American Gods uses a two-man con as a major plot element.
- O. Henry's collection The Gentle Grafter describes a variety of confidence tricks.
- Slippery Jim - the protagonist of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat trilogy - uses abundant schemes and frauds.
- The Big Con - Enough said.
- Judith Ivory's Untie My Heart
- Jenny Crusie's Faking It -- Features a family of confidence artists
- Neil Gaiman's American Gods uses abundant schemes and frauds.
See also

- Bogus Escrow
- Business opportunity
- Chain letter
- Get-rich-quick schemes
- Email fraud
- Internet fraud
- Spamming
- White-collar crime
Quotations

- In response to the question "Who's going to believe a con artist?" Ben Matlock of Matlock (television series) responded, "Everyone, if she's good."
References

- Blundell, Nigel. 1982. The World's Greatest Crooks and Conmen and other mischievous malefactors. Octopus Books, London. Reprint: 1984. ISBN 0-7064-2144-2
- Maurer, David W. 1940. The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man and the Confidence Game. New York: The Bobbs Merrill company. ISBN 0-3854-9538-2
- Maurer, David W. 1974. The American Confidence Man. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher. ISBN 0-3980-2974-1
- J. Bowyer Ball and Barton Whaley. 1982. Cheating and Deception. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.) ISBN 0-88738-868-X
External links

- [http://chnm.gmu.edu/lostmuseum/lm/328/ "Arrest of the Confidence Man," New-York Herald, 1849]
- [http://www.quatloos.com Compendium of scams etc]
- [http://www.writerbeware.org/ Writer Beware, a website that exposes literary scams]
- [http://aurumgames.com/scam/search.php The biggest HYIP scam listing]
- [http://scam.com Scam forum]
- [http://www.paper-shredder-expert.com/Identity-theft.htm Identity theft prevention]
- [http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20051009%2FNEWS01%2F510090392%2F1008 "A hoax most cruel," Louisville, The Courier Journal]
- Category:Deception Category:Fraud

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded¹ from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Writer

The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. Skilled writers demonstrate skills in using language to portray ideas and images, whether producing fiction or non-fiction. A writer may compose in many different forms, including (but not limited to): poetry, prose, music. Accordingly, a writer in specialist mode may rank as a poet, novelist, composer, lyricist, playwright, mythographer, journalist, film scriptwriter, etc. (See also: creative writing, technical writing and academic papers). Writers' output frequently contributes to the cultural content of a society, and that society may value its writerly corpus -- or literature -- as an art much like the visual arts (see painting, sculpture, photography), music, craft and performance art (see: drama, theatre, opera, musical).

Alternative uses of "writer"

Practitioners within some specialized fields also use the term "writer" to describe their arts. For instance, advertising creatives, gag-writers and graffiti artists also refer to themselves as "writers." In these contexts, "writer" may be considered an alternative use of the term, rather than describing a so-called "literary" or "serious" writer as discussed above. A "writer" can also be mechanic. For example, court reporters often refer to their stenotype machine as a writer. Similarly, some word processors are called "writer", such as OpenOffice.org Writer and Nisus Writer.

External links

- [http://www.wga.org Writers Guild of America, west]
- [http://www.wgae.org Writers Guild of America, east]
- [http://www.writersguild.org.uk Writers' Guild of Great Britain]
- [http://www.writersguildofcanada.com/ Writers' Guild of Canada]
- [http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/ International PEN]
- [http://www.authorssociety.org/ Authors Society.org]
- [http://www.Writing.Com/ Writers] Category:Media occupations Category:Literature ja:著作家 ko:작가 th:นักเขียน

Author

An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. This can be short or long, fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose, technical or literature. In particular, the word is used to refer to a person doing it for pay (as a profession).

Role in critical theory

One key issue in literary theory is the relationship between the meaning of a literary text and its author's conscious intent.
- The phrase "Death of the Author" was popularized by Roland Barthes in his 1968 essay with the same name. It is used to convey the idea that texts have meaning and an independent existence outside that intended by the author, depending on the context and reader.
- The death of the author is in self-conscious opposition to the New Criticism, a literary critical movement popular in England and America in the first half of the 20th century. According to this movement, the author's intent is assumed to be quite clear to the author and it becomes the critic's task to understand this intent.

Moby-Dick

:For the Led Zeppelin song, see Moby Dick (song). Moby Dick (song) Moby-Dick – the hyphen in the title is present in the original edition – is a novel by Herman Melville. It was first published by Richard Bentley in expurgated form (in three volumes) as The Whale in London on 18 October 1851, and then in full, by Harper and Brothers, as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale in New York on 14 November 1851, in a single volume. Moby-Dick's style was revolutionary for its time: descriptions in intricate, imaginative, and varied prose of the methods of whale-hunting, the adventure, and the narrator's reflections interweave the story's themes with a huge swath of Western literature, history, religion, mythology, philosophy, and science. Although its initial reception was unfavorable, Moby-Dick is now considered to be one of the canonical novels in the English language, and has secured Melville's reputation in the first rank of American writers. The novel is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Background

Moby-Dick follows the hardy crew of the Pequod, led by Captain Ahab, a Quaker, on a whaling expedition that takes them around the world. The expedition soon degenerates into a monomaniacal hunt for the legendary "Great White Whale", as Ahab seeks revenge on the animal that cost him a leg. The plot was inspired in part by the November 20, 1820, sinking of the whaleship Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts). The ship went down 2,000 miles (3,700 km) from the western coast of South America after it was attacked by an 80-ton Sperm Whale. The story was recounted by several of the eight survivors, including first mate Owen Chase in his Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex. Moby-Dick also undoubtedly draws on Melville's experiences as a sailor, and in particular on his voyage on the whaler Acushnet in 1841–1842. Melville left no other account of his career as a whaler, so we can only guess as to the extent to which Moby-Dick is a roman à clef (like his previous novels Typee, Omoo, Redburn, and White-Jacket), and how much is wholly invented. However, it is known that there was a real-life albino sperm whale, known as Mocha Dick, that lived near the island of Mocha off Chile´s southern coast, several decades before Melville wrote his book. Mocha Dick, like Moby Dick in Melville's story, had escaped countless times from the attacks of whalers (and consequently had dozens of harpoons in his back), whom he would often attack with premeditated ferocity. Mocha Dick was eventually killed in the 1830s. No one knows what prompted Melville to change the name "Mocha" to "Moby," but given that Mocha Dick was an albino sperm whale, it is obvious that Melville used him as a basis for his book.

Characters

The crew-members of the Pequod are carefully drawn stylizations of human types and habits; critics have often described them as a "self-enclosed universe."

Ishmael

Ishmael is the name the narrator takes for himself, it is unclear whether or not this is his actual name. "Call me Ishmael" is one of the best-known opening sentences in English language literature. A newcomer to whaling, Ishmael serves as our eyes and ears aboard the Pequod. He is, at the end, the only witness alive to tell the tale. Ishmael was the name of the first son of Abraham in the Old Testament. The Biblical Ishmael was born to a slave woman because Abraham believed his wife, Sarah, to be infertile; when God granted her a son, Isaac, Ishmael and his mother were turned out of Abraham's household. The name has come to symbolize orphans and social outcasts. From the beginning, Ishmael tells us that he turns to the sea out of a sense of alienation from human society. Ishmael, like Melville, has a rich literary background that he brings to bear on his shipmates and their adventure. Ishmael resembles Melville himself in many ways, as well as the narrator of Melville's White-Jacket: The World in a Man-of-War. All are literary, reflective types who see their shipmates as exemplars of human nature and the universe, and tell their stories with a wealth of philosophical reflection. "White Jacket" is – as symbolized by the garment that gives him his name –very much an outsider to his crew. Ishmael himself sometimes completely vanishes into Moby Dick: toward the end of the novel it can be easy to forget that it is being told by a first-person narrator and not simply an omniscient narrator. In many ways the Pequod is a ship of outcasts that manage to form a complete society among themselves. Ishmael is perhaps its voice, or its self-consciousness.

Ahab

Ahab is the captain of the whaling ship Pequod. Having lost a leg to Moby Dick on their last meeting, Captain Ahab is consumed with the desire for revenge. He has a peg leg made of whalebone, and a livid white scar that runs from head to toe and looks like the mark which a bolt of lightning leaves in the bark of a tree. Contrary to what many readers believe, the scar down Ahab's side was not given to him by Moby Dick, it was actually caused by a lightning strike ("clear spirit of clear fire", see Chapter 119). There are two Ahabs named in the Bible, one a King of Israel, the other a blasphemous prophet delivered by God to be killed by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. The captain is named after the king, who is described in the novel as "bloodthirsty."

Moby Dick

Moby Dick is a livid white sperm whale who has been attacked by multiple whaling ships, but has been able to destroy his attackers. Melville spelled the whale's name without a hyphen, but used a hyphen in the title of the book.

Mates

Starbuck, the young First Mate of the Pequod, is a thoughtful and intellectual Quaker. :"Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some organization seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance... [H]is far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, tend[ed] to bend him ... from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. "I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward." --Moby-Dick, Ch. 26 Starbuck is alone among the crew in objecting to Ahab's quest, declaring it madness to want revenge on an animal that lacks the capacity to understand such human concepts. Starbuck advocates continuing the more mundane pursuit of whales for their oil. He is, however, too weak and ineffectual to persuade Ahab or the crew to abandon the quest. Starbucks Coffee is partly named after him; see [http://radio.weblogs.com/0118865/stories/2004/08/03/theConciseAndCorrectExplanationOfTheStarbucksNamingMyth.html]. Stubb is the second mate of the Pequod, who always seems to have a pipe in his mouth and a smile on his face. "Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests."--Moby-Dick Ch. 27 Flask is the third mate of the Pequod. "A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered."--Moby-Dick Ch. 27

Harpooners

Queequeg the harpooner is a "savage" cannibal from a fictional island in the south seas. The son of the chief of his tribe, he befriends Ishmael in Nantucket before they leave port. Queequeg is a skilled harpooner on Starbuck's boat. His behaviour is both civilized and savage. Tashtego is described as a "savage" -- a Native American harpooner. The personification of the hunter, he has turned from hunting land animals to hunting whales. Tashtego is the harpooner on Stubb's harpoon boat. Daggoo is a gigantic "savage" African harpooner with a noble bearing and grace. Daggoo is the harpooner on Flask's harpoon boat. Fedallah is the sinister leader of Ahab's secret harpoon boat crew. He is of Persian descent ("Parsee"). "[T]all and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head." Moby-Dick Ch.48

Symbolism

All of the members of the Pequod's crew have biblical-sounding, improbable or descriptive names, and the narrator deliberately avoids specifying the exact time of the events and some other similar details. These together suggest that perhaps we should understand the narrator--and not just Melville--to be deliberately casting his tale in an epic and allegory mode. Ahab's desire to pursue Moby Dick is contrasted with Starbuck's desire to run a normal commercial whaling ship. It can be seen as the clash of idealism and pragmatism. The white whale itself, for example, has been read as symbolically representative of good and evil, as has Ahab. The white whale has also been seen as a metaphor for the elements of life that are out of our control. The Pequod's quest to hunt down Moby Dick itself is also widely viewed as allegorical. To Ahab, killing the whale becomes the ultimate goal in his life, and this observation can also be expanded allegorically so that the whale represents everyone's goals. The only escape from Ahab's vision is seen through the Pequod's occasional encounters with other ships, called gams. Readers could consider what exactly Ahab will do if he, in fact, succeeds in his quest: having accomplished his ultimate goal, what else is there left for him to do? Thus, the outcome of the quest is irrelevant, and actually completing the journey is not the goal - it's the "thrill of the chase" that's important. Similarly, Melville may be implying that people in general need something to reach for in life, or contrariwise that such a goal can destroy one if allowed to overtake all other concerns. gam gam

Selected adaptations and references

- Jules Verne's 1870 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea references a hunt for a dangerous ship-sinking "Moby-Dick", which turns out to be the Nautilus.
- A 1926 silent movie, The Sea Beast, starring John Barrymore as a heroic Ahab with a fiancee and an evil brother, loosely based on the novel. ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017354/ IMDb link]) Remade as Moby Dick in 1930. ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021149/ IMDb link])
- Moby Dick Rehearsed a 1955 television "play within a play" directed by Orson Welles. ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349829/ IMDb link])
- Moby Duck is a character created for Disney's line of comic books, a relative of Donald and the other ducks in the Disney mythos.
- A 1956 film directed by John Huston and starring Gregory Peck, with screenplay by Ray Bradbury. ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049513/ IMDb link])
- Tom and Jerry meet `Dicky Moe` in a 1961 MGM cartoon of the same name.
- Sam Peckinpah's 1965 film Major Dundee, with Charlton Heston and Richard Harris, recycles many of the story's plotlines and characters into a Western setting.
- "The Doomsday Machine" is a Star Trek episode written by Norman Spinrad that is loosely based on the Moby Dick story.
- "Obsession (Star Trek)" is another Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk tries to destroy a vampire-like cloud creature that attacked and killed his captain and his crew on his old ship, the Farragut. Kirk was like Ahab and the creature resembled Moby Dick. However, the story ends with the crew learning about the creature, its menace to known space and deciding that Kirk was fundamentally correct in hunting it.
- Nova, a 1968 science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany, features a starship voyage with a misfit crew, and an obsessive and facially scarred captain strongly resembling Ahab.
- The Wind Whales of Ishmael, a 1971 in literature science fiction sequel by Philip José Farmer, transports Ishmael to the far future.
- "Moby Dick" was an instrumental recording by Led Zeppelin featuring a drum solo by John Bonham.
- "Nantucket Sleighride" was a recording by Mountain describing a ship's crew "in search of the mighty sperm whale" and referring to "Starbuck sharpening his harpoon".
- Jaws was a 1975 film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the novel by Peter Benchley. Actor Robert Shaw played Quint, a crusty old Ahab-like sea captain who was obsessed with hunting down a white shark.
- Bruce Sterling's 1977 novel Involution Ocean is a science fictional pastiche of Moby-Dick.
- Moby Dick, a one-man show featuring Jack Aranson, who played 13 characters from the novel, was filmed in 1978.The director was Hollywood veteran Director Paul Stanley.Paul Stanley DGA directed over 100 eposodic TV series over a period of 20 years including Hallmark Hall of Fame. According to the film's producer John Robert this version is the closest to Herman Melville's soaring almost Shakespearen dialogue.Critic Elloit Norton said "As Ahab,Mr Aranson takes on stature. It is a brilliant performance."Jack Aranson's MOBY DICK was called by TIME magazine as one of the top (5) one-man shows of all time."To devise a version of [Moby Dick] as a one-man, 90 minute theatre piece comes under the heading 'They said it coundn't be done.' Jack Aranson has done it superbly...With this one-man show. Jack Aranson has joined a select and illuminating company, that of John Geilgud in 'Ages of Man,' Siobnan McKenna in 'Here are Ladies,' Emelyn Williams as Charles Dickens and Hal Holbrook in 'Mark Twain Tonight.' 'Moby Dick is the most formidable task of the lot."-T.E.Kalim The newly re-mastered DVD was released by Amazon Thanksgiving day 11-24-05.([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452823/ IMDb link])
- Rick Veitch's Abraxas and the Earthman (serialized in Marvel's Epic Magazine) was practically influenced by Moby Dick.
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) borrows liberally from Moby-Dick. Khan and his first officer Joachim are based on Ahab and Starbuck, and many of Khan's lines are taken almost verbatim from the novel, a paperback copy of which is seen on a shelf in Khan's exile quarters at the film's beginning. ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/ IMDb link])
- In Star Trek: First Contact (1996) Captain Jean-Luc Picard's fight against the Borg is compared to that of Captain Ahab against Moby Dick. ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117731/ IMDb link])
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