Through grandiosity, Melville demonstrates that Ahab possesses the final quality of a tyrannical leader: insecurity. As a leader, Ahab’s insecurity about himself is that he is weak. The symbol of insecurity is his leg. He’s desperate for vengeance on Moby Dick for taking his leg, leaving him physically impaired. For example, when Ahab smashes his leg in “Ahab’s Leg” he isn’t able to fully function: “his ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured" (Melville 505). His leg is also a symbol of punishment because Ahab believes he is above God and fate combined and Moby Dick taking his leg would be a reminder to Ahab that he is only human. …show more content…
An example of his “godly power” is in “The Candle” chapter when the crew witnesses St. Elmo’s fire for the first time (Melville 549). To the crew, they interpret that the sight could be a sign from God or fate, but Ahab uses it to demonstrate his power: "Aye, aye, men! Look up at it; mark it well; the white flame but lights the way to the White Whale!" (Melville 550). He proceeds to make a show by grabbing the rod to demonstrate his power and that he is superior to God and fate combined (Melville 552). Ahab knows he’s only human, but he desperately wants to prove himself greater than his impairment, and the supernatural forces around him which only leads to his downfall as a
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
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
The incestuous nature of story telling which is featured in Ahab's wife is reminiscent of the Anne Sexton's poem, Briar Rose. Una is in a constant search for sustenance. Her mind as cannot exist without the hope of learning and engulfing knowledge. As a child, it was the occupation of her father to appease her insatiable appetite. This was done with stories and the boundless possibilities she was allowed to find within the recesses of her mind. As time progresses and Una grew, her father started to question the conclusions and presumptions that these internal scavenger hunts were building within her.
...o warn against pursuing the whale, such as when the captain of the Samuel Enderby proclaimed, “There would be great glory in killing him… but, hark ye, he is best left alone; don’t you think so captain?” Nonetheless, Ahab never listened. While it may seem that the many ships that warned Ahab not to pursue the whale seems too obvious of a foreshadowing to happen in real life, the same hints were being given to Americans at the same time. Other countries, such as England, had abandoned slavery years before Americans did. Similarly, once the civil war began and the southerners looked for some support from the British, they were rejected on the account that Britain would not support slavery. Whether it was the pride or determination that drove Ahab to find Moby Dick, both were too strong and blinded him from seeing that change needed to occur for the Pequod to survive.
In Melville's Moby-Dick, or The Whale, Ahab calls himself "madness maddened" and across the oceans he unleashes his madness in an unerring quest to wreak his hate upon the white whale, that agent or principal of the "inscrutable malignancy" lurking behind the phenomenal world. Milder asserts that by making Ahab mad, Melville found the means to present an apocalyptic act of a hero, free of the constraints of realism, that might express the disillusionment of the cultural moment that had witnessed the end of religion, the frustration of the Romantic quest, and the end of the possibility for spiritual meaning in the universe. Thus, Ahab is rendered believable. But by making Ahab mad, he risked rendering him irrelevant. For Ahab to remain important for the reader, he must not be reduced to mere madness. Once he speaks only for the aberrant, one need no longer grapple with him, need not account for Ahab. We dismiss Calibans, Pucks, even Iagos, but we cannot easily dismiss Lear and McBeth and Hamlet or Ahab. The madman and the possessed can be exiled from our affinities as wholly "other," such that one inscribes their behavior in a circle of experience separate from our own, for unless by some event beyond our control we ourselves become monsters or madmen, the madman's reality remains sufficiently and safely different from our own. To attempt to account for Ahab, one must acknowledge his reality as a possible reality and admit the potential for the Ahabian in one's own possible reality.
This quotation is foreshadowing for the whole book. It foreshadows the internal struggles Amir will experience throughout his life because of what happened that one winter day in 1975. The author not only utilizes the quotation as foreshadowing for the book but also as a reflection on the hurt in his life.
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.
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
Herman Melville’s Moby Dick presents a deep inside-look into the minds of psychologically disturbed individuals. A character study is brought forth to light as Melville makes use of dysfunctional characters. There are many examples of mental duress in this story such as Pip’s plunge into insanity after being cast-away from the Pequod. This is a result of an environmental factor. The pivotal mentally disordered individual in question is Captain Ahab, who lacks any brakes over his obsessive actions, leading into the fateful demise of his crew and the Pequod. As with Pip, Ahab is plagued by a traumatic event which leads to extreme manifestations of counterproductive traits. There are multiple signs that there is an underlying problem with the captain. By contemporary medical standards, such as the DSM-V and the Dark Triad of Personality, Captain Ahab’s mental deterioration can be traced to his psychopathic tendencies—his impulsive behavior, lack of self-control, and self-destructive actions.
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.
... halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life" (Melville 545). With these words, Ahab's fate is linked with a universal fate of mankind. Through this common denominator, Ahab's struggle becomes that of all men everywhere.
At first, the captain of the Pequod, Ahab, is a mystery. Having first spent most of his time held up in the main cabin of the ship. Only commanding through select members of his crew. It is only once the voyage is under way, and he slowly starts to withdraw from his "tomb" that we begin to learn about him. The main motivating force in the book, Ahab is looking to reclaim what he lost. A part of himself, now a throbbing ivory reminder of the great white phantom that stole his leg.
In Melville’s Moby-Dick, Queegueg and Ahab show distinction between good and evil through the treatment of others, themselves and situations. Although Queequeg is a pagan, he has more Christian attributes than even the most devout Christians on the Pequod. Ahab is not the person that everyone would expect to be the most iniquitous character of them all. Most would say that Moby Dick himself personifies evil however, he has innocent characteristics about him. This is unfair, as is calling Queequeg a savage or saying that Ahab is civilized.
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.
Herman Melville, one of the more iconic names in Gothic literature, saw the world differently. Free from the Puritan rhetoric, Melville very much enjoyed the pleasures of the natural world. Melville traveled, and spent time among Natives. In several accounts he described his favorable time amongst them, and showcased the idea of noble savages beyond the borders of America. Without such tragedy to fuel him, Melville penned optimistic stories of adventure and excitement. The world wasn't a trap or a test, but a rich pearl oyster to be pursued and celebrated. True fame, or at least legacy, came later, with the publication of Moby-Dick. A darker story, but still heavy with adventure, Moby-Dick was undoubtedly a story of tragedy. Ahab, the iconic captain in the story, was driven by an obsession to hunt down a whale that injured him years prior to the story's beginning. Rather than accepting this as nature being a bit dangerous Ahab, against the better judgment of other members of his crew, anthropomorphised the titular whale, seeing it as a someone, not something, that wronged him and des...