Moby Dick

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Ahab: Ahab constantly makes unjust decisions. He is poisoned with his dying urge to kill Moby Dick. So he has bad judgement, that leads to issues with the crew. Ahab makes very unwise decisions, he lets his dying urge to kill Dick get in his way and clog his mind. Ahab’s motivation is to kill Moby Dick for revenge from taking his leg. Ahab’s actions affect the crew and people around him, because he can’t make a clear judgement because he wants revenge on Moby. Ahab is constantly referred to as stubborn, unwise, and he makes bad calls that affect his crew. Ahab has a need for revenge, because Moby took his leg. So he made a leg made of whale bone to remember his enemy. When Starbuck tells Ahab about the oil leak, Ahab silently thinks that he has to stop the ship. Ahab starts off flat, but then as the story progresses he gets more and more filled with anger. The author, shows his feelings through Ishmael, it shows that no-one likes Ahab. Starbuck: Starbuck makes just choices. He does what is best for the crew and sometimes he tries to make Ahab change his mind. Starbuck’s actions are ...

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  • Moby-Dick: When In Doubt, It's From Shakespeare

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    Analysis: Melville's Great American Novel draws on both Biblical and Shakespearean myths. Captain Ahab is "a grand, ungodly, god-like man … above the common" whose pursuit of the great white whale is a fable about obsession and over-reaching. Just as Macbeth and Lear subvert the natural order of things, Ahab takes on Nature in his

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  • Moby Dick Captain Ahab Meaning

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    Besides the rebuttals, Starbuck even cried to himself as Ahab went on the hunt for Moby Dick, "Oh! Ahab! not too late is it, even now, the third day to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not.

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  • What Influenced Margo's Black Notebook

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    9. Captain Ahab and Q and their stories are similar in a few ways. First, just like Ahab was obsessed with finding the white whale, Q was obsessed with finding Margo. Second, both characters cannot be identified as being foolish or heroic. Finally, both characters actions lead them to disappointment by Q not convincing Margo to come back with him and by Ahab not finding the whale, which caused his death. In conclusion, Moby Dick represents Margo and Q’s story and

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  • Moby Dick Rhetorical Analysis

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    A tattooed man he meets in an inn, named Queequeg keeps Ishmael company throughout his journey. At first, Ishmael is alarmed by Queequeg’s tattoos and brute like habits, but eventually he becomes fond of him. Together the two get on a whaling ship, known as the Pequod. The captain's name is Ahab. He is a rather strange character. The primary conflict of the story is that Ahab holds a grudge against Moby Dick, the great

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  • Moby Dick Ahab Character Analysis

    240 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Moby Dick, it follows the accounts of a young man named Ishmael. Ishmael is looking for money in the whaling business, the same thing as hunting game, but for whale blubber and whatever else they have to offer. At a tavern, he signs up to go whaling upon a ship named the Pequod, under the captaining of a man named Ahab. At first, Ishmael thinks he’s just your average whaling trip, but soon realizes there’s a deeper story behind Ahab. Ahab’s true intentions are to find a specific whale called Moby Dick. The whale is famous for sinking hundreds of whaling ships, and one was Ahab’s previous ship. In that process, Ahab also lost part of his leg at the knee. As you can imagine, most of the story Ahab is almost insane. At nothing anyone calls

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  • From Rejection to Reverence: The Journey of Moby Dick

    1156 Words  | 3 Pages

    Moby Dick is one of the greatest books written in American literature but when it was first made, Herman Melville was shamed for writing it and hated. After a while Moby Dick was noticed from being a book everyone hated to one of the most popular pieces of literature now. The title Moby Dick is known by almost everyone in America. Originally Moby Dick was called The Whale that was originally published in 1851 but was changed to Moby Dick in a later date. The book starts out with a very famous line called “call me ishmael” which was the name of the main character/narrator who goes out to sea as a merchant and wants to go on a whale adventure. Captain Ahab gathers his crew to hunt down Moby Dick even though they were supposed to go to get oil

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  • AHAB in moby dick

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    The first few times that Ahab is introduced to the reader and to his crew, he appears to be inhuman. Even his description when he first appears on deck states that he “seemed made of solid bronze” (Melville 117). To compare him to a statue is to distance him from humanity – he is not a breathing, emotional being. However, as the book continues, it becomes blatantly obvious that Ahab hates his obsession and is greatly disturbed by the fact that he is obsessed. This self-hatred makes Ahab human because he knows that he is leading himself to his death and yet he is so possessed by his obsession that he can do nothing to stop it. Every human being can relate to this feeling, for at one point or another, everyone feels like they have lost control. Though Ahab may be an extreme example, he is simply a strong representation of a characteristic human sentiment.

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  • A Comparison of Melville's Moby Dick and Bartleby

    542 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ahab is dedicated towards regaining control of his life by conquering the whale. His obsession with Moby Dick is what fuels his desire to spend months and months at sea. Ahab is so involved that he tries to get into the mind of the whale. He becomes obsessed with the whale’s every move. Similarly, the narrator is highly analytical of Bartleby’s behavior. He feels the need to know exactly what it is that makes Bartleby ‘tick’. Eventually the narrator is mentally defeated by Bartleby and is forced to change the location of his offices in order to avoid him. Ahab on the other hand is constantly chasing his antagonist and does whatever he can to get closer to Moby Dick.

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  • Tom Walker Emotion

    673 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ahab’s quest for the whale is not an honorable pursuit of God, but man’s vain endeavor in his hatred of God to destroy the all-powerful deity. The symbol of the whale as God makes sense as it is white a color that is associated not only with purity and honor but the deity of God himself. Because this whale caused him personal damage in an earlier encounter, Ahab views the whale as an “inscrutable thing”, making it his life’s quest to get revenge (335). Not only does he associate the whale with this damaging experience, he connects the deity of God with “the white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber for me forever and a day!” (334). His quest for vengeance distorts his ability to have a relationship of God as who can endure the pursuit of such a being if the pursuit is driven by enmity? Ahab’s pursuit of Moby Dick, “Be [he] agent, or be [he] principal” is driven strictly by hostility and a lack of righteousness (335). Only those who have experienced the sweetness of reconciling grace can look at the tremendous

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  • Lord Of The Flies

    329 Words  | 1 Pages

    Throughout The Lord of the Flies, the author shows how different Simon is from the rest of the savages on the island. He is much more innocent and pure than the others and has a religious demeanor. Light, very commonly a symbol of holiness and purity, is used quite often during Simon’s “funeral”. In the last four paragraphs of chapter nine, “A view to a death”, Golding makes clear the use of light imagery to suggest the apotheosis of Simon.

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  • The Dark Romantics

    941 Words  | 2 Pages

    In addition Ahab in "Moby Dick" is considered not only as an evil and sinful person but is selfish and greedy. The reason why he is sinful, evil, selfish, greedy, mainly is because he didn’t care what the other people on the ship wanted or that what he was going to do would or could bring dangers, and what he was doing was a waste of time, because instead of getting vengeance on "Moby Dick". He could be hunting whales for food and selling what’s left of them and make money.

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  • Captain Ahab

    1450 Words  | 3 Pages

    Captain Ahab sights Moby Dick from afar and continues his hot pursuit on the White Whale. For three days, a relentless chase occurs because of Ahab’s desire for revenge. The indomitable whale continually destroys boat after boat. During the latter days of the struggle, the whale finally attacks the Pequod, plunging the ship to the bottom pits of the ocean. Determined to reach his final goal, the captain makes a last ditch effort and launches his harpoon towards Moby Dick. Ironically, Ahab’s harpoon catches around his neck and strangles him to death. Obviously determined to avenge his leg, the Captain causes his own downfall through his own desire for retribution. In The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare creates two characters, Hamlet and Laertes, who endure a series of events and unveil Shakespeare’s similar belief that revenge causes one to act blindly in anger. Through Shakespeare’s distinct language and diction, the characters’ motivational factors and personality traits, the write conveys his strong belief regarding the desire for vengeance.

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  • The Feminine Sea in Moby Dick

    3702 Words  | 8 Pages

    In this novel, it's hard to see Ahab surviving and the whale not. It's hard to see that because the feminine side of nature is so overpowering and overwhelming. Almost everything that is larger than man is female and all of it is indifferent to him. Indeed, the part of Moby Dick that is male is probably the part that wants to hunt Ahab so much. The rest of his power is that over-arching feminine power of the ocean, the sun, nature, and even the soul. The men's club doesn¹t stand a chance. In the end, Ahab must take whatever she decides to give them.

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  • The Iliad

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    Divine Intervention is a “direct and obvious intervention by a god or goddess in the affairs of humans”. In various myths such as the Iliad, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Herakles, divine intervention was called upon in order to restrain a hero’s destructive or too powerful forces. Although the divine intervention was used to impair different heroes, the purpose to constrain was the same in all the narratives.

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  • Free College Essays - Lessons Learned in Moby Dick

    358 Words  | 1 Pages

    The novel, Moby-Dick, can teach you many things if you can remain focussed long enough.  However, the most prominent lesson that can be learned from the work is not that complicated and rather apparent.  This lesson can be summed up in one sentence; don’t become to focussed and obsessed with one goal to the point that you exclude the more important things in life.  This lesson is represented with Ahab’s peculiar obsession with hunting and killing a whale.  By setting this as his most significant goal in life, he begins to ignore more important things such as the lives of his crewmen, and eventually his own life.  This mistake wound Ahab up dead. Although the novel isn’t trying to say that if you over obsess with a matter or issue in your life that you will die, it’s simply trying to say that if you put minor self-centered goals before what’s most important, you will more than likely regret it.  This lesson is very true, and can be related to real life instances when compared to examples such as government dictatorships or social relationships.  For instance, many dictatorships are lead by one person with overwhelming power over his or her nation.  This, in most cases, ends up with a greedy and uncontrollable leader who leads their country to certain downfall.  Also, on a much more common scale, some relationships can symbolize this lesson.  For example, say one person is very much so attracted to another.

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