Comparing Ahab And Ishmael's Visions Of Moby Dick

Captain Ahab is obsessed with the idea of seeking revenge and killing the great white whale, Moby Dick. He boards the Pequod, a whaleboat ship and with only one mission in mind, to destruct Moby Dick. Ahab is a bad captain for the whaleboat because he is infiltrated with the obsession to kill Moby Dick which makes him manipulative, selfish, and quite dangerous. Even if the Pequod’s fate was to fail or succeed, Ahab made it inevitable to have a good success. Throughout the book, it can be argued that Ahab seems to portray not only the pequod’s ship caption but a dictator as well. The crew is deemed to risk their lives for the captain’s sake no matter the circumstances since their choices are limited to either dying by jumping off the boat or

Throughout his novel, Moby Dick, Herman Melville will often devote entire chapters to the thoughts and actions of specific characters. Two specific examples of this type of chapter are Chapter 36, The Quarter-Deck, and Chapter 42, The Whiteness of the Whale. The first of these chapters depicts Ahab addressing his crew for the first time in order to convince them to hunt down Moby Dick. The second offers insight to the fear that is brought upon by the mere mention of Moby Dick The significance and effectiveness of each of these chapters are enhanced by Melville’s use of rhetoric and style respectively.

He shows his strong feelings for his mission by repeating the word “death” in the sentence. The repetition of the word “death” is significant to Ahab’s expression of his passionate tone because it is a word charged with many negative emotions. Emotions like hate and vengeance find their way into the word death, and by repeating it with the intent to kill Moby Dick, it shows Ahab’s twisted passion for the mission. In addition, he adds “God hunt us all”, to show how invested he is in his mission. His emotional ties to the white whale is so strong that he thinks they deserve to be punished if the mission is a

In the book Moby Dick, there were numerous themes, symbols, motifs but the main one that was the basis of the book was revenge. The book is about Ishmael, the narrator, who goes whaling in a ship called the Pequod, with people that have a significance in the story especially the captain, Ahab. Ahab has an obsession with catching a white whale named Moby Dick that took his leg and this obsession of getting revenge takes a turn for the worst and the everyone on the Pequod, except Ishmael, died. One question we might what to ask ourselves is, what is Captain Ahab taking revenge for? Is it for his leg, For his anger, For his suffering or is it for something totally different? Maybe it's for all of them. Whatever it may be, sometimes the torment is so incredible, and the requirement for retribution becomes so strong, that it festers inside and starts to devour us. Captain Ahab exemplifies the idea of a determined desire for vengeance and shows how it can decimate a man.

The first passage is the opening paragraph to Herman Melville Moby Dick. The novel opens the narrator speaking, “Call me Ishmael” (Melville 3). This line is significant for many reasons. One is that the narrator does not state that is his name, but just what he prefers to go by. Another reason is that Ishmael is a biblical name, it comes from the son of Abraham. However, Ishmael is overlooked in the bible and Abraham’s son Isaac becomes this heir of his family. Thus, making Ishmael an outcast and a loner. This directly reflects what Ishmael is like in Moby Dick. Ishmael begins to tell his tale, a few years ago he decided to go out and explore the ocean. Ishmael talks about how he was depressed living on land. He says, “…I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul” (Melville 3). November is often symbolic of death because it is a time between fall and winter when everything is dying. Ishmael explained how he was feeling morose and gloomy all the time. He even states, “especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street” (Melville 3). This implies that Ishmael is suicidal and often thinks about giving up. During this time, in the 1850s, traveling out to sea was a dangerous task. Lots of men who traveled out to sea never return. It is considered suicidal to go out and hunt whales. This is exactly why Ishmael

In literature, the truly memorable characters are those special individuals that arouse powerful emotions in the reader. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick presents a man who is undoubtedly among the unforgettable characters of literature: Ahab, sea-captain of the whaling ship the Pequod. At first, Ahab is a mysterious figure to Ishmael, the narrator of the tale. Despite the captain’s initial reclusiveness, Ishmael gradually comes to understand the kind of man that Ahab is and, most importantly, the singular obsession he possesses: finding the white whale, Moby Dick. The hunt for Moby Dick (and, correspondingly, the idea that Moby Dick represents) is the critical component of Ahab’s personality, and Melville makes that all-important idea known to

And 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 on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think you do look brave'" (Melville 166). In this motivational speech to the crew Ahab tells them of their mission: to find and kill Moby Dick. To make him spout "black blood," evil blood, the blood which enables this whale to live, to breath, to move, to hunt, to kill, is evil, the root of his entire existence is black with death and destruction. The organ of goodness and love, the heart in this creature, pumps evil through his veins. Moby Dick's evil, alluded to in this passage is of less importance than the formation of a monomaniac from this obsessed person. "What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad- Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and- Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, ever were,"

Aboard the Pequod, as the ship is bustling with activity, Melville describes the scene as the crew performs the grueling task of processing a whale. Large, bubbling try-pots of oil blubber fill the deck of the ship and a heavy smoke blankets the air as harpooners and sailors work regardless of the conditions. Through this familiar scene, Melville layers the setting and characters to build up a distinct mood for this passage. Specifically, he pulls dark romanticism into his writing by paralleling Ahab’s monomania and the deterioration of the crew. To establish an ominous atmosphere and describe the impending doom of the voyage, Herman Melville combines many forms of figurative language like sinister similes and the eerie personification of the Pequod with suspenseful imagery.

Although Ahab’s insanity appears to be what shuts him off from humanity, in reality it is what makes him human. Ahab desperately wants to be freed from his obsession – to not have to rely upon it to feel. It is because Ahab is no longer in control of his obsession that the reader eventually discovers that besides what the book originally seems to insinuate, Ahab is only human.

Moby-Dick is considered to be one of, if not the, best novels in American history. Harper & Brothers first published it in 1851 in New York. In England, it was published in the same year under the title, The Whale (“Moby Dick”). Melville explores topics and themes that were scarcely spoken of and never even seen in a novel. In the novel, the Pequod, which is the ship, is named after a Native American tribe that was exterminated when the white settlers arrived. It is a symbol of death and doom and foreshadows event that occur later in the novel. Melville brings some very controversial themes to light in the novel. Revenge is one of the main themes of Dark Romanticism and Melville uses it to drive every action taken by Ahab. This is seen early on in the novel as Ahab explains to the crew why he has a peg leg and that he wants to enact his revenge on Moby Dick (Melville 160-161). “Moby Dick is, fundamentally, a revenge tragedy. It’s about one man’s maniacal obsession with vengeance. It’s about finding an object on which to pin all you anger and fear and rage, not only about your own suffering, but also about the suffering of all mankind” (“Moby

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick was written by Herman Melville. Roger Chillingworth and Captain Ahab are evil figures portrayed in these two stories. Chillingworth and Ahab are consumed by evil and their intentions are quite similar. Captain Ahab devotes his entire life to hunting down and killing his nemesis, the giant white whale Moby Dick.

His most famous book, Moby Dick, features the observant narrator, Ishmael, aboard the Pequot, a ship captained by the menacing one-legged Captain Ahab. Having lost his limb in a previous voyage to an enormous sperm whale named Moby Dick, Ahab scans the seven seas in manic search of revenge against the giant. Queequeg, Ishmael’s menacing best friend, and the rest of the crew are subjected to extreme jeopardy and later death due to Ahab’s monomaniacal disregard for bad omens and danger. The whale slices the boat clean in half and none survive to tells of its greatness except Ishmael.

Explain Ahab’s last speech found at the top of page 623 through the end of the paragraph ending with “Thus, I give up the spear.” In what way is Moby Dick a “…all-destroying but unconquering

While Ahab was still the obedient captain he once was, he was one of the most successful and higher rewarding captains. Unexpectedly, in the midst of a whaling, Ahab and his crew encountered the whale he now refers to as “Moby Dick” or “the white whale.” The crew initiated in capturing the whale, but this whale was different. Rather than capturing the whale, the whale captured Ahab and though Ahab escaped, he did not escape entirely. Moby Dick had dismembered and consumed half of one of Ahab’s legs. Ever since this incident, Ahab’s one and only desire or, as stated in the text, “...his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought” has been to kill Moby Dick; which soon turns him obsessive (Melville). Ahab would not let anyone or anything stop him from achieving his goal, “...’I’ll chase him ‘round Good Hope, and ‘round the Horn, and ‘round the Norway Maelstrom, and ‘round

Herman Melville, in his renowned novel Moby-Dick, presents the tale of the determined and insanely stubborn Captain Ahab as he leads his crew, the men of the Pequod, in revenge against the white whale. A crew mixed in age and origin, and a young, logical narrator named Ishmael sail with Ahab. Cut off from the rest of society, Ahab attempts to make justice for his personal loss of a leg to Moby Dick on a previous voyage, and fights against the injustice he perceived in the overwhelming forces that surround him. Melville uses a series of gams, social interactions or simple exchanges of information between whaling ships at sea, in order to more clearly present man’s situation as he faces an existence whose meaning he cannot fully grasp.