Yet by the time one reads Chapter 36 of the novel, it becomes clear that Ahab, named after a biblical figure that was married to Jezebel "who sponsored false prophets and gods, killed true ones and destroyed altars devoted to the Lord or Jehovah" (Smith, 267), is now a man possessed and "obsessed with destroying Moby Dick," due to the having lost his leg to the mighty jaws of the mysterious and terrifying white whale, humped with a crooked back and pierced by lances from past attempts to kill him.
By Chapter 37, the reader is convinced that Ahab is mad, for he admits "I am demonic, I am madness maddened!" (Melville, 436) as a result of his fanatical pursuit of Moby Dick, a fanaticism which reflects Ishmael's description of a religion which is "frantic" and produces "positive torment." As proof of Ahab's madness, the following passage reveals the so-called dark underbelly of the beast, the quintessential evil element in Moby Dick:
Aye, aye! It was that accursed white whale that razed me... I'll chase him round Good
Hope and round the Horn and round the Norway Maelstrom and round perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! To chase that white whale... till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out!" (Melville, 432).
Although it cannot be disputed that Moby Dick itself stands as a symbol of evil, due to removing Ahab's leg and the limbs of many other past pursuers and being responsible for the drowning deaths of untold numbers of Nantucket whalers over the years, he has only reacted as such because his very existence was threatened by mankind in the form of hunting and harpooning; in essence, Moby Dick was simply protecting himself and reacted as any wild animal would to threats of death. Simultaneously, Captain Ahab's obsession to destroy the white whale is also evil, for only true evil can be found in man, rather than in animals. Thus, "the evil that Moby Dick appears to have is the (same) evil within Captain Ahab"...
Moby Dick and Nature, How Nature Displays an Indomitable Force Moby-Dick provides different conducts of human beings towards nature. Melville presents a sea animals' world with a white whale as the focus of the narrative and a society represented through the Pequod. Through underlining the conflict between the Pequod, and the white whale, the author of the novel makes a unique, thorough and intensive check out into the link amid human
Moby Dick In Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the character of Captain Ahab is repeatedly referred to as a "monomaniac" (Melville Chapter 41). In other words, he is a man obsessively devoted to and possessed by a single idea -- to get revenge upon the white whale, Moby Dick. To some extent, Ahab views his long-sought encounter with the whale as his own personal fate: it is clear from Melville's depiction that
In Job, the character of Job is presented as a virtuous individual who lives sinless and in accordance to the will of God. In order to test this, God sends his messenger down to strike Job and his life with a slew of calamities, including boils and loss of money. Job has no reason to blame himself for this punishment, yet refuses to curse god. In the end, he is
Moby Dick or, The Whale is a book that can be read on a number of levels. On the surface it is an adventure story and a mine of information about whaling and the whaling industry. However, the novel also explores the depths of the human psyche and cardinal philosophical questions relating to the meaning of life, religion and good and evil. Sociologically, the novel explores the tension between enlightened
Point ONE: Billy Budd: Critic Eugene Goodheart is the Edythe Macy Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Brandeis University. He writes that while critics are generally divided between those who see Captain Vere as "an unwitting collaborator" with Claggart and those who feel Vere was correct to have Billy sent to the gallows. In his piece Goodheart explains that Billy is "…variously seen as Adam before the fall, as a noble
.. (is) blasphemous!" (pg. #). This is yet another foreshadowing device, for it shows that Moby Dick is nothing but an animal with no conscience and that Ahab's need for revenge will inevitably lead to his own death and that of the entire crew aboard the Pequod. In a very moving moment in the chapter "The Musket," Starbuck's moral ethics are put to the supreme test, for after a severe typhoon,
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