At the time Herman Melville wrote "Moby Dick," the major occurrence in his life was his friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne's wife, Sophia, observed their relationship saying "Mr. Melville, generally silent and uncommunicative, pours out the rich floods of his mind and experience to [Hawthorne], so sure of apprehension, so sure of a large and generous interpretation, and of the most delicate and fine judgment." The two's friendship and appreciation of one another was proven by Melville in the dedication of "Moby Dick"to Hawthorne where he inscribed, "In token of my admiration for his genius."On the surface, these two writers had little in common. However, one of the links between them was the sea. Melville spent much more time at sea than his friend. For over 2 years, he was employed as a harpooner. During this time he heard wild stories of the Southern Sperm Whale Fisheries. These legends have simularities to "Moby Dick." They tell of notably larger and uniquely colored whales, claiming these phantom whales bring bad omens and that any encounter with them was always deadly.
If I wrote a paper on what I felt influenced Herman Melville's"Moby Dick" the most, I would pick either his friendship with Hawthorne or the fishery legends about mysteriously powerful whales. I believe they were both major factors to its success.
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