Thus, he is not fascinated like Ishmael by the metaphysical, he wants to own it and vanquish it: "That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me."(Melville, 162) in Ahab's struggle with the inscrutable, he never ceases to be a personality himself, refusing to be daunted by its overwhelming force. The ultimate desire to kill the whale shows Ahab's obsession with obtaining an absolute victory over the unknown. The captain is obviously haunted by the same high perception of reality as Ishmael is, with the addition that his strife is extremely personal. Starbuck on the other hand, is humane and animated by common sense rather than by a high perception of things. For him, Ahab's mad quest is blasphemous and irrational: "Vengeance on a dumb brute!' cried Starbuck, 'that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.'"(Melville, 162) Melville thus emphasizes the...
Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it... Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! But 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! And with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures!"(Melville, 168)
" p. 162 Ahab has taken the power and autonomy given to him as a ship's captain and set himself against God and nature over the loss of his leg. It is this hubris that will bring the Pequod to her doom. By the end of the novel, Captain Ahab seems to realize that even as great as he apparently thinks he is, he may not be able to master Moby-Dick.
And like a human being "owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere" (Chapter 85). And who knows, the whale may even be superior to us, as "this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be
Melville continues, "Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself" (Melville 159). Ahab may be mad, and the author combines all of these details to give the reader a picture of a man who is unique, different, and just a bit frightening as well. As
Queequeg's Coffin There are a thousands different ways for a man to lose himself and his soul - and a number of ways for him to be saved. Herman Melville presents us over the course of his work with a dozen different ways in which men find and lose and sometimes find themselves again. For Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick, the way to life and to perhaps even hope is
Additionally, the holy ritual of anointing the selected things for God's intentions is discussed as well in Moby Dick -- where Queequeg come to a decision that the whaling ship must be anointed and as a result, he alone come to a decision to anoint the ship which permits Queequeg the sacred right of personal participation in the anointing procedure, something usually referred to a religious person; Queequeg did not
Moby Dick Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick has been read in countries and language from all over the world. It has been picked apart and analyzed from a plethora of analytical theories and contexts. In terms of the four functions of mythology, the story can be read in any perspective: mystical, cosmological, sociological, or pedagogical. Analysts and literary scholars could make the case that Moby Dick could be interpreted through any
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