The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is thematically quite similar to Moby Dick: Hemingway’s novel also explores themes of man versus nature, and features a single intimate friendship. Life of Pi, by Yann Tiersen, also tells a story of man against nature, as the main character, Pi, must learn to survive on a lifeboat as he shares it with a tiger.
As Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne were good friends during the time of Moby Dick’s writing, perusing Hawthorne’s own work, such as The Scarlet Letter, will show thematic similarities between the two, particularly a certain cynicism about the way of the world.
Other works by Melville, such as Omoo and Redburn, are more...
