Nature Is the Teacher: Rational Ecocentrism for Ultimate Self-Realization in “Moby Dick” and “The Old Man and the Sea”

Hemingway and Melville offer a wide range of diversity of human beings’ conduct towards nature through their novels The Old Man and the Sea and Moby Dick, respectively. Both novels describe the characters’ interactions with nature at distinct ecocentric levels. While one protagonist shows positive interactivity towards nature (positively ecocentric), another shows a considerable disregard for nature’s majesty by placing oneself first (Anthropocentric). This paper seeks to investigate the characterization of the protagonist in the two novels through an ecocentric perceptive. In essence, the characters’ interactivity with nature will reveal their characters. This discourse places them side by side to demonstrate their similarities and dissimilarities in character, will and determination, and obsession in achieving their quest. The paper is an ecocentric analysis of the two novels to conclude whether the quest of the protagonists shows their preoccupations with revenge or self-realization.