Melville's Later NovelsHerman Melville wrote out of a strong creative impulse closely tied to an even more imperative will to survive, to resist the ravages of despair and the urge toward self annihilation that grew out of an all too clear vision of the world he saw around him. In his novels Melville wrote of this struggle to survive in a harsh, unyielding world, creating characters such as Ahab and Pierre, who thrash about blindly because of self ignorance, and characters