6.+Narrative+Structure+and+Use+of+Digression


 * Focus Questions:**


 * 1) How many narrators does the author use in //Moby Dick//? Try to identify each narrator.
 * 2) What purpose does each //narrative voice// seem to have? (Identify the purpose of each)
 * 3) How many genres (drama, novel, travel narrative, diary, scientific journal, homily/sermon, etc.) of writing does the author use in writing //Moby Dick//? Identify them and determine the author's purpose in using each one.
 * 4) Who is the protagonist of the novel?
 * 5) Who's story is being told in //Moby Dick//? Why does the author spend so much time focusing on seemingly minor characters who do not move the main plot of the novel?
 * 6) What is a //frame story//? How does this structure help the author to develop the themes of his novel?
 * 7) What about the chapters on //cetology//? What purpose do they serve in the author's development of a central purpose?
 * 8) What seems to be the author's purpose in writing this book (**Remember:** we already have many stories that deal with the dangers of obsession and //monomania//; why would Melville take a theme that has been used again and again and apply it to a story that started out as a simple whaling adventure gone wrong?)
 * 9) As a whole, how does the author's use of narrative structure (the multiple narrators, the different genres, the ambiguous protagonist, the many digressions) help the author to achieve his purpose?

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