In Herman Melville’s classic, the major character Ahab is an old whale-man and captain of a ship called the Pequod. This Ahab hunts one special whale – the biggest and wildest white spermaceti, which has such a horrible reputation that sailors have named it the Moby Dick. However, this Ahab’s desire for the whale-beast almost verges on madness. Finally, after two day’s fight with Moby Dick, Ahab became so furious that even his first mate Starbuck began to think the captain had completely lost his mind.
“‘Oh! Ahab,’ cried Starbuck, ‘not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!’” (Melville, 1994, p. 531)
As the story develops, even the reader must ask what it is that forces Captain Ahab to the three-year voyage without landing in any seaport. Basically, and apparently from the over-exaggerated fish, it may be the same thing as the narrator’s thoughtful questions:
“Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove?” (Melville, 1994, p. 23)
Surely it is the sea itself. For Ahab, as every born Nantucketer, was somehow magically attracted to the sea since he had seen the shining reflection of sun on the calm water surface for the first time. It is like a malediction. Almost every normal human can feel butterflies in his stomach when he looks at the deep blue unknown, full of unexpected surprises. The sight of peaceful waves with white tops is so relaxing. No wonder that people can become addicted to it so fast. Especially men from such an old fishing town as Nantucket, who have the salt water in their veins.
Secondly, it could be the pure want of adventure common to almost every male that keeps sailors on the sea. Although it may seem boring, actually every day on ship brings something new to them. And whale-men have twice or even thrice the adventure on their voyages. Their job is far more dangerous than any other, because they deal with the biggest animals living on this Earth. “Yes, there is death in this business of whaling—a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity” (Melville, 1994, p. 53). When you come in contact with one of the whales, it can kill you by a single move of its tail. So every time the whale-men lower to the sea, they get so close to Death that they can easily shake hands with her. But this dangerous situation makes them excited and their blood boiling. During such voyages, all the boys and young men on board go through so many perils that they soon mature. Such a great school of life it is: “…a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.” (Melville, 1994, p. 120)
Moreover, people hunt and kill whales to demonstrate their own power. Sometimes they do it to prove they are the rulers of the world and all its creatures. And Ahab was no exception.
“For a Khan of the plank, and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab” (Melville, 1994, p. 134).
Whales, as I mentioned before, are the greatest animals; they are really colossal. They seem to be the very descendants or remnants of prehistoric times. They are considered to be almost royal animals, the masterpieces of the whole fauna. With such huge bodies, they are the most powerful creatures. Consequently, one needed more power and strength and brain development to capture the giant. So, when the hunt was successful, the happiness of victory was great. The more and bigger whales the whale-men killed, the more reputable they were among other sailors.
As Melville states, not only was whale oil worthy, but even their bones were one of the most valuable articles. The skull and tail used to be given to British kings and queens as gifts and then they had it made into the best furniture. So the most successful whale-men had the possibility of becoming known to the royal family. Their prestige grew with every new whale and ordinary people thought them to be the bravest men.
But out of all whales, the most worthy and the most wanted was one white spermaceti whale, especially enormous and monstrous, unkillable, one of which every sailor was terrified. It was Moby Dick. When Moby Dick was shown on sea, he seemed like an iceberg. Ishmael, one of the whale-men from Pequod and the narrator of the story, said about him:
“By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.” (Melville, 1994, p. 26).
Ahab probably had a similar idea. He “had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only and all-engrossing object of hunting the white whale… He was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge” (Melville, 1994, p. 188).
Yes, revenge; that was doubtlessly the main reason for his obsession with Moby Dick. Because it was this beast that defrauded Ahab of his leg. It was the first time they met, yet Ahab was not capable of the strength of the white whale. He fearlessly followed Moby Dick and hit him with a few harpoons.
“And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab’s leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. (Melville, 1994, p. 185).
Terribly hurt, Ahab was picked up by the ship and soon he got an infection. Whether it was caused by the fever and hallucinations or not, he personalized all the bad happenings of his life into Moby Dick. Possibly he accused the whale of all his misfortune and he wanted the fish to pay for his lost, now eaten, leg.
“Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The white whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung.” (Melville, 1994, p. 185)
All day long Ahab walked on the deck of Pequod with his ivory leg, half clumping and half knocking, that for all his stuff, he seemed almost as terrifying as the white whale. He was absolutely possessed by the idea of killing Moby Dick for revenge. About this case he said:
“To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ‘tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him 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.” (Melville, 1994, p. 167).
Ahab hated Moby Dick from the depth of his heart, if it could be said he had any. For he was an uncompromising leader of the ship. Every nerve, every littlest part of his being, was concentrated only on this one idea and he did everything to achieve it. Psychologists might have said he got mad or that he suffered from some kind of psychical illness. One way or another, Ahab’s behaviour was not normal.
“Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms.” (Melville, 1994, p. 201)
Lastly, there is another thing which could be the reason for Ahab’s possession. The story takes place in the early 19th-century when people strongly believed in omens. Omens are sayings, like foretellings, that tell people about the future. They are usually connected with particular people. The book does not make it clear when Ahab received his omen, but it is very likely that it was shortly after his incident. He believed that he and the whale were somehow mystically linked together and that it was his fate to destroy the beast. As if Ahab was the only one who could do it, who had been chosen by Providence to complete this task. He was sure that if he had not hunted Moby Dick, the whale would have hunted him.
“…seems it not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of individual recognition from his hunter” (Melville, 1994, p. 306).
This certitude may also prove that Ahab was not psychically all right. But he was absolutely sure of his fate for “the peculiar snow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but be unmistakable” (Melville, 1994, p. 306).
When some of the aforementioned events started to become true, it was much worse with him. He was totally persuaded the omen must be true, no one on the ship could convince him that it was just pure craziness to fight Moby Dick again. Doing so meant certain death. The whale-men stopped to trust him. Even his closest and dearest person, the first mate Starbuck, was sad. It was then, after two days of running after the white whale and several unsuccessful tries of capturing him, when Starbuck said the words mentioned at the beginning of this work. But Ahab did not care about it. He did not care even about the words of the mysterious fellow Gabriel from a foreign ship, who was considered to be an angel fallen from the skies and who warned him before the whale.
“‘Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible tail!…Aye.’ Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward pointed finger—’Think, think of the blasphemer—dead, and down there!—beware of the blasphemer’s end!’” (Melville, 1994, p. 306, 308).
But Ahab knew only his omen:
“For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick—two days he’s floated—to-morrow will be the third. Aye, men, he’ll rise once more,—but only to spout his last!” (Melville, 1994, p. 524).
Furthemore, his friend, Fedallah the Parsee, was to be gone before Ahab. That happened. On the third day of the hunting, Ahab spotted the Parsee’s drowned torso tied by harpoon rope to the back of Moby Dick. But it was too late and Ahab’s doom caught him.
To sum up, there may be various reasons why Captain Ahab was so furious about hunting and killing the white whale Moby Dick. From adventurous magic of the sea, up to the psychical illness and possession. However, the novel is worth reading so the reader can see the development of this mysterious and strange character.
Thanks!