Introduction
It is hard to imagine what a 19th-century American novel and 21st-century anime have in common. However, both of them offer interesting views on the concepts of morality, good and evil. The purpose of this essay is to compare the relationship between Ahab and Moby Dick in the book Moby Dick to Light Yagami and L from the manga and anime Death Note. The relationships between the mentioned characters in these two pieces of art are similar in terms that they represent the confrontation of good and evil, but at the same time, the concept of what exactly is good and evil in these stories is ambiguous. There is a difference in these two relations as well, which shows in the characters’ interaction: Moby Dick and Ahab have none, while Light Yagami and L have the opposite. Each of these relationships embodies the idea of how humans chasing evil leads to their demise.
Religious Symbolism
Moby Dick is a story where religious symbolism plays a crucial part. It starts with the symbolism of the characters’ names. The narrator in Moby Dick is named after Ishmael, the exiled and abandoned son of Abraham. The name justifies itself as the plot of the story starts with Ishmael joining “abandoned people,” a whaling ship crew (Wand and Lyu 177). The second character whose name is a reference to Old Testament is Ahab, the captain of the ship who is following the white whale, Moby Dick. He is the namesake of the vicious Israel king and suffers a similar fate: demise due to ignoring the prophecies and obsession with his goal (Wand and Lyu 176). The choice of characters’ names illustrates the future specifics of the plot.
Death Note refers to religious motifs as well. One of the most obvious metaphors is the constant use of apples, which is a symbol of original sin in the Bible. The main character Light, who finds Death Note, which gives him the ability to kill other people, bites an apple as a sign of giving in to temptation and using the Death Note (Death Note: Relight – Visions of a God). The apple is an attribute of the image of Ryuk, the Shinigami who gave the Death Note to Light and, therefore, created the situation of temptation (Haden 310). At this moment, the metaphor for Light’s choices and future is clear.
There is a parallel between Light’s relationship with L, the detective who tries to catch him, and the relationship between Jesus and Judas as Light betrays L and becomes the reason for his death. One of the scenes in the anime even is similar to the scene of Jesus washing Judas’s feet. The names of the characters are telling as well, portraying L as God and Light as the devil as Light Yagami translates to “Light Night God” (Pace 43). The idea of which of them represents evil in this story is more complicated than the names suggest, at least according to the views of the characters themselves. The difference in religious motives in these two mediums is that the first one is focused on the idea of predestine, and the second one is a story of falling from grace.
The Concept of Good and Evil
The essential part of both stories is pursuing the nemesis that represents evil. However, it is up to the audience to decide whether their idea of evil coincides with the concepts proclaimed by the main characters. For captain Ahab, the nemesis he is determined to defeat is Moby Dick. He thinks of the whale as the devil, the destructive force that ruined his life. In Ahab’s eyes, the whale is pure evil that should be eliminated (Melville 131). However, in the eyes of other characters, the white whale is considered to have divine features. For example, Starbuck states that killing Moby Dick would be blasphemous, for it does not have its own will (Melville 131). That leads to the conclusion that Moby Dick is likely to represent God’s will, and this is why it is useless and dangerous to fight it.
The moral ambiguity of the Death Note is that Light considers his actions good. He proclaims that he is killing for the sake of creating a new world instead of the old, rotten one. In other words, he takes over the role of divine power (Death Note: Relight – Visions of a God). His nemesis L confronts him driven not by altruistic motifs but for the sake of his own curiosity and entertainment in the first place. L commits morally ambiguous actions in order to catch Light as well. Both of them justify their actions as necessary to bring justice to the world.
It is impossible to ignore that motives of Ahab and Light Yagami are similar. Both of them are fighting evil, how they understand it. The two of them choose the same methods as well, as Ahab and Light decide to destroy evil in its material form. The difference is that Ahab’s fight is personal revenge. The captain does not have a picture of the world’s future in mind. Light, on the contrary, does not have a personal motive. He stands against injustice and malice on the universal level.
The other interesting distinction between the two concepts of the evil nemesis is that Moby Dick, while having some supernatural features, is represented as a chaotic force. There is no calculation, no motive in the whale’s actions. It is a force of nature, even if Ahab takes the destruction caused by Moby Dick as a personal wrong. The confrontation between Light Yagami and L is different since Light’s actions are subject to human emotions and ambitions. If Moby Dick represents evil, it is universal, general evil and injustice that exists in the world. Light Yagami represents the other kind of evilness dictated by human weaknesses and sins.
Obsession
The characters of these two stories are obsessed with their enemy. The reasons for their obsessions are different, but nevertheless, it leads to the same end. Captain Ahab is absorbed in the idea of his revenge so much that he neglects anything else. He has a family and a little child, but it does not stop him from risking his life and pursuing Moby Dick. Not to mention, Ahab is ready to risk the lives of his sailors even though he knows how dangerous facing Moby Dick will be for them. In his chase, he isolates himself from other people (Wand and Lyu 176). The most significant part of this obsession is that Ahab basically appoints himself an enemy, personifying external force. It is possible to say that he fights himself, as the idea of the whale as the evil that needs to be destroyed exists in his mind in the first place.
Light and L are obsessed with destroying each other as well. Light’s determination to defeat L is dictated by his ambition. Gaining the power to decide whether a person lives or dies, Light develops a god complex. He wants to get rid of L as he wants to get rid of anyone who is able to reveal his personality. Partially, this obsession comes from insecurity, as although Light claims he is invincible, he still perceives L as a threat and an enemy (Death Note: Relight – Visions of a God). L’s absorption is caused by the conviction that Light is committing evil but does not come only from his moral principles. The other reason for the detective to take part in this confrontation is the competitiveness both of them share (Pace 42). L’s fight with evil leads to his demise as well as he dies trying to catch Light.
Interaction between Characters
All mentioned above underlines the peculiarities of Ahab’s and Moby Dick and Light and L’s interaction. As Moby Dick is an uncontrollable evil and destruction, he has no contact with Ahab at all. Mobi Dick has no interest in Ahab and does not seek him. Ahab is the one who is doing the chasing, and the confrontation is one-sided. There is no communication between them on a personal level. The whale is an external force the captain tries to defeat. This is an interesting metaphor for a fight against things that are out of human control or all the malice in the world. In such a fight, a person does not stand a chance of winning, and Ahab loses.
Opposite to Ahab and Moby Dick, Light and L interact on a personal level. The interesting nuance about their interaction is that they do not have full knowledge about each other’s identity, while Ahab knows well what his enemy is. Their communication is more direct due to the fact they know each other’s intentions, and at the same time, it has more barriers as they cannot reveal themselves to their enemy; otherwise, they will lose.
Conclusion
To summarize all mentioned above, the nemesis interaction in Moby Dick and Death Note has many common features but is different in nuances. Both stories rely on religious symbolism, but Moby Dick refers to Old Testament specifically, while Death Note references New Testament as well. The main characters of both mediums are convinced they are standing against evil, but their concept of evil is questionable. Moreover, their choice of means to defeat evil leads to destructive consequences for other people and could be considered unethical at least.
The main difference between the two relations is based on the fact that Moby Dick is not a willing participant in the confrontation. It is an entity that Ahab decides represents all the evil in the world. In their relationship, Ahab is the only one who is interested in the fight. The confrontation between Light and L is more personal, although both of them think about doing the right thing as they see it. Still, part of their motivation is competition and the wish to outsmart the enemy. This relationship is concentrated not on fighting all evil in the world but on defeating a concrete form of evil represented in the actions of a certain person. Still, the end of this fight is the same for both stories. People who actively pursue evil appointing themselves as its fighters eventually lose.
Works Cited
Death Note: Relight – Visions of a God. Directed by Tetsurō Araki, Madhouse, 2007.
Haden, Sara. “Building Their Own Ghost in the Shell: A Critical Extended Film Review of American Live-Action Anime Remakes.” History in the Making, vol. 13, 2020, pp. 307-316, Web.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Whalen Book Works LLC, 2022.
Pace, Kurt. A Critical Study of Morality in Anime and its Effect on Young People. University of Malta, 2019.
Wang, Na, Lyu, Zhenhua. “Religious Ambiguity of Herman Melville in Moby Dick.” Global Academic Journal of Linguistics and Literature, 2022, pp. 175-178, Web.