Similarities Between Moby Dick And Ahab's Wife

Exploring Death in the Novels, Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife

Nineteen years of my life has passed. By age nineteen, Una Spencer of Ahab's Wife had experienced numerous cycles of contentment and isolation, safety and loss. I cannot pretend to say that I have lived even as marginally an emotionally tumultuous life as Una's, but like most people, I can say something of loss and sacrifice. One of the last things my grandmother said on the hospital bed in which she died was to ask my mother whether I had been accepted to my first-choice college. I was not with my grandmother when she died, but the fact that she had asked about something so inconsequential and irrelevant about my life reveals the way she viewed her own life and death: without idealization,

Ask how you can live more fully...Am I dying? No. I am living until I can't live anymore" (Caputo). Stated by a writer with terminal cancer, this quotation encompasses how I want to live my life, which is why I have a difficult time understanding the characters of Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife, particularly those of the former. Many of the crew on damned Pequod knew that their ship was destined for death, yet they did not protest their lot, but rather accepted their inevitable fate with an emotionless resignation as though they had died even before they stepped foot on the ship. They died as if to avoid the pain of living; a passive suicide. The crew of the Sussex, however, was less overt in their willingness to end their lives because they had led a comparatively gratifying existence. Giles and Kit had their companionship to savor on quiet nights, while Captain Fry had Chester to love. These characters were not emotionally-devoid, just weak of spirit-too dependant on ephemeral quiet waters to keep them

There is an essential loneliness that is common to both Ahab and Una, for they each carry within themselves a burden which they feel that they cannot share. There is a certain safety in evasiveness because honesty often precludes emotional vulnerability, but Una proved herself strong enough to be able to speak about her experiences on the Sussex. Thus, she recovered because talking proved to be an emotional catharsis-divulging her experiences and moving on with her life. Ahab, however, was not capable of talking. In Ahab's Wife, he seems to take pride in a strong masculine identity, which might have rendered him incapable of divulging his thoughts. Ahab stands alone as if he was punishing himself; he is a masochist in every sense of the word, pursuing his enemy until he was ultimately consumed by his hatred. He lacked the capability to forgive what had been done to him, clinging to the hatred which kept him alive. For years, Ahab and Una had been punishing themselves for an act that was beyond their control and they seemed to almost relish in their tragedy. A less powerful emotion that Ahab's passionate hatred, regret was Una's maxim for life for several years after the Sussex was stove-she regretted that she partaken in eating human flesh and had thus lived while others had perished-but she was able to transcend that regret because she found love in unexpected