Moby Dick Captain Ahab Rhetorical Analysis

Consequently due to his personal growth as a character, Ishmael's divine spirit becomes saved and he himself is rescued from certain death. Captain Ahab remains unable to accept the concepts of transcendentalism, his pursuit of Moby-Dick is relentless and without mercy. His character has no opportunity for growth or discovery as he shuns the advice of everyone, whilst in pursuit of the white whale. Due to this his fate becomes irrevocably sealed and he is doomed to fail his mission and perish at the mercy of his quarry.

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

Sometimes whats ideal in a situation is not what the truth of the situation and can cause your ideals to be lost. In William Golding’s novel, “Lord of the Flies”, he demonstrates a shift in some of the characters from the thought of idealism to the reality and truth of the world. Ralph is a good example of this shift, he starts out thinking the island will be a fun place and they’ll have fun waiting to be rescued, but soon he realizes that there is going to be more hardship and struggles to keep up the moral and hope of rescue. In the book Ralph wanted to keep everyone safe and get them off the island, but Jack wants to be a leader and messes up his plans, making it so that Ralph is alone in his plan to get rescued.

Captain Ahab always had the desire to go after Moby Dick. His obsession grew even deeper when the great white whale took his leg. He spent several years trying to go after the whale. By being the captain of the ship, he had crew members come along on his journey to help slay the whale. His passion grew deeper each day as he lived amongst the ship and set sails to complete his mission.

In Chapter 36, Ahab finally chooses to reveal the true purpose of this whaling voyage: To hunt down and kill Moby Dick. He does so through a grandiose speech in which he rallies almost the entire crew to his cause through a number of persuasive techniques. Ahab begins his speech by asking the crew a few basic questions about whaling. These questions lay out the basic purpose of this voyage: To hunt whales. In doing so, Ahab is laying the groundwork to convince the crew to hunt down a very specific whale: Moby Dick. In addition, the call-and-response used in this portion of the speech unifies and excites the crew, thereby making them more open to what Ahab is about to say. Immediately following this, Ahab reveals his desire to kill the White Whale and offers an ounce of gold to the first man to spot it. This use of bribery piques the interest of the crew and offers an

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

He tells his crew, "He tasks me; he heaps me; I see him in outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing 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.” He tries to convince his crew that what he's doing is for a good cause. Ahab is willing to do whatever it takes to convince his crew to help him on his journey to kill Moby Dick. Ahab has to persuade them that hunting Moby Dick is more important than earning a profit. Ahab persuades his crew shows that he willing to kill his crew if it means having a better chance at achieving his

This is not the first time Ahab has spoken to himself as he often paranoidly talked to himself about what he would do if others tried to hurt him, then proceed to tell himself how crazy he is. These are Ahab’s last words. It’s funny how these are not only his last words, but the first time Ahab said anything with true feeling in the book. Though he may have not killed Moby Dick like he truly wanted, Ahab found the whale again and threw in a few last punches while cursing it and fate before his demise. I feel that, though Ahab did not kill Moby Dick, he was ready to die because he had closure since he found the whale again and was able to throw one final spear and give it his all. Following his death there was silence because the only

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

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

Gabriel warns Ahab that if he keeps pursuing the white whale his end will come. Ahab refuses to listen because he is selfish and is too determined to seek his revenge that he will risk his life and his crews life so he can kill the creature of the deep.