Blog Question #3 (part A)

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The intertextuality of Eustacia Vye, Ham Peggotty, and Moby Dick utilized within“The Boat” provides a deeper context and understanding of the characters within this fishing boat family.  Eustacia Vye is used to convey the strong and unique beautiful physical appearance of the narrator’s mother with “ a local beauty for ten years”, and “she was tall and dark and powerfully energetic”. This helped emphasize the stark contrast between his mother’s work ethics and dreams with those of Eustacia Vye’s by, “My mother was of the sea as were all of her people, and her horizons were the very literal ones she scanned with her dark and fearless eyes.” As for Ham Peggotty, the self sacrifice of Ham is shown through the narrator’s decision to put his love for schooling aside, so he could assist his aging father on the fishing boat. While this decision did not come lightly, it did come swiftly knowing he was helping his family, “And I knew then that David Copperfield and The Tempest and all of those friends I had dearly come to love must really go forever. So I bade them all goodbye.” Finally, Moby Dick represents the all encompassing struggle of his parents connection to the ocean. Whether it’s the mother’s need of having her identity tied to a fishing family, or the father’s struggle of having chosen such a path, the ocean eventually swallows up their remaining years with his drowning, and her meager existence thereafter.