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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)
Thus, the four main characters in Moby Dick are all philosophers more or less. Ishmael and Ahab however are definitely lost in their metaphysical quests, while Queequeg and Starbuck preserve their humaneness and their capacity to bear their existence as well as that of the world in a natural way.
Works Cited
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972
Works Cited
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972
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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