Hierarchy and Mutuality in Paradise Lost, Moby-Dick and The Brothers Karamazov

Lawrence L. Langer

Sep. 2022 · Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

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The three works considered in Hierarchy and Mutuality in Paradise Lost, Moby-Dick and The Brothers Karamazov display a striking overlap in their concern with hierarchy and mutuality as parallel and often intersecting way of how human beings relate to each other and to divine forces in the universe. All three contain adversarial protagonists whose stature often commands admiration from audiences less ready to confront their motives and deeds than to be swayed by their verbal harangues. Why the quest for personal power should disturb the serenity of mutual love with such compelling force is an issue that Milton, Melville and Dostoevsky address with varying degrees of self-consciousness. In their texts the seeds of disaster seem to sprout in both spiritual and barren soil, sometimes nurtured by a hierarchy that gave them birth, at others in reaction against a hierarchy that would stifle their energy. The purpose of this study is to analyze the origins and the consequences of such tensions.

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Lawrence L. Langer is professor of English emeritus at Simmons University in Boston.