Herman Melville’s novel contains three main characters: Ishmael, Captain Ahab, and Moby Dick. Ishmael, the narrator of the story, never gives the reader a complete physical description of himself, but it may be inferred that he is a strong young man of average build and perhaps a tan complexion due to his previous service on board merchant ships. “Ishmael is an intellectual and a philosopher, a person who carefully examines what he sees around him.” (Buell 63) His casual introduction of “Call me Ishmael” gives the reader a feeling of familiarity and friendship. (Melville 16) His views on culture, religion and the whaling industry reveal him as a thoughtful, open-minded individual. Ishmael’s chief motivating factor is his thirst for knowledge. Consequently, he becomes a crewmember aboard the Pequod in order to gain the experience of being a sailor for the first time on a whaling vessel. Ishmael’s desire to analyze and explain allows the reader to gain much insight through the narration of his experiences. Ishmael is the object through which Melville himself speaks. (Hardwick 66) The connections he makes are profound and amazing and most definitely reveal the author’s own views:
“All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks, but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whaleboat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side” (Melville, p. 274).
Captain Ahab is the skipper of the Pequod, a dark, mysterious man who rarely seeks human companionship. A jagged white scar mars his face and body, a result of lightning striking the captain. His left leg, severed at the knee by his enemy Moby Dick, is augmented by “a peg-leg of whalebone” (Bryant, p. 119). According to Ishmael, a sense of determination is painted across Ahab’s face. This determination is both Ahab’s most admirable quality and his Achilles’ Heel, for though it shows his inner fortitude when turned upon Moby Dick, it becomes the fuel for his madness. Yet Ahab is not a villain nor a madman. Rather, he is best described as an antihero, a character who displays the shortcomings of man, namely the desire to conquer the unconquerable. Ahab is a mirror through which the reader may see aspects of him/herself, which allows the reader to understand, if not empathize with, the tortured captain (Zoellner, p. 169). Moreover, Ahab recognizes the unmerited rage within him, understands its evil, and thus can be admired for it. He feels like a puppet, with his destiny beyond his control:
“What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing it is; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor command me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as a dare? Is Ahab, Ahab?” (Melville, p. 444).
Moby Dick is a story of Captain Ahab, commander of the whaling ship Pequod, who seeks revenge upon the white whale that took his leg. Ahab struggles with the whale Moby Dick, but also against what the whale symbolizes: the awesome power of nature. As evinced by dialogue in the later chapters, the captain comes to realize that Fate, or some larger universal power, controls him. Despite his apparent recognition of the futility and evil of his quest, Ahab forsakes family (young wife and son), friends (Starbuck), and crew in pursuing the object of his blind hatred. The narrator Ishmael actively participates in this conflict, noting upon numerous occasions omens of doom such as the appearance of the squid and the misalignment of the compass during a severe storm. (Parker 158) He understands that the captain’s motivations are corrupt and states this to the reader often.
The high point of the novel was when Captain Ahab, after watching Moby Dick destroy the Pequod, struck a final time with his harpoon at the white whale. By doing this, Ahab showed that while he understood his desire for revenge was unjust, he still was unable to conquer his own hatred (Selby, p. 52). As a result, he is destroyed by the whale. This resolves the conflict of Ahab vs. Moby Dick, with the whale emerging victorious. Also, the conflict of Ahab vs. himself was solved, as Ahab gave in to his darker side instead of seeing the hopelessness of his struggle. In both conflicts, Melville shows man’s inferiority to Nature and warns against such futile actions as trying to completely control Nature. In addition, Melville urges others “to control their own desires for power instead of being controlled by them, thus avoiding the suffering they may cause” (Thomas, p. 92). By finally destroying the monomaniacal Ahab and his ship, the author satisfies the reader by fulfilling the omens of doom scattered throughout the book, even before the ship left Nantucket.
Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale, is Ahab’s adversary, at least in the mind of the captain. A gigantic and legendary sperm whale with a distinctive white hump, he bears the scars of many battles upon his gigantic body. Moby Dick is experienced in the ways of the chase and shows his power and fury in battle. (Dow 429) However, as a symbol of Nature, the white whale has no real malice toward Ahab or any human. Rather, he is a balance of good and evil, not exclusively one or the other. Unlike the all-too-human Ahab, Moby Dick seeks no revenge and holds no grudges. As an animal, the whale cannot speak, but the first mate Starbuck understands the nature of this beast: “Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!” (Melville, p. 424).
In the end, Ahab’s futile struggle against Nature is resolved in his and his ship’s destruction. By destroying Ahab, Melville sends the message that Nature and Fate are unconquerable, that man must realize this truth and accept it. On a minor level, Ishmael finds conflict within himself; his entire motivation for shipping aboard the Pequod is to gain worldly knowledge, both of the sea and of his fellow man. His close friendship with Queequeg is evidence of his struggle to accept foreign cultures and ideas (Smith, p. 266). However, in the end, Ishmael finds himself exactly where he started, alone on the open sea.
Throughout the whole story, the white whale is not only depicted as an unexplainable force of nature but is also given an almost divine quality. It is constantly compared to God, and as the people fear and revere God, they also fear Moby Dick and whales in general. The Whalers of the town see the whales, not as their prey but they see them as their adversaries. It is an adversary that equals and often surpasses them in prowess. From the beginning of the novel, the reader is confronted with the image of the whale as the personification of power and strength, and Stubbs says, “If God were to be any fish, he would be a whale” (Melville 239). From this comment alone, it is evident that the whale holds a great deal of power. It is also obvious that to confront a whale is much like confronting Mother Nature or even God, in both situations, the odds are stacked heavily against a person.
In the novel, the whale symbolizes a kind of supernatural power that can even rule the universe. Undoubtedly, this power is evil. Still, for example, for Starbuck, the whale is only a sea monster, as he called it a dumb brute and a source of valuable oil. Starbuck just collects his own impressions without analyzing the deep meaning of what happens. Ahab perceives Moby Dick as the most dangerous enemy, almost the devil. In fact, this display of evil lives in Ahab’s consciousness, destroying Ahab. Ishmael sees nothing but the pasteboard mask in the white whale. Observing Captain Ahab’s battle with Moby Dick, Ishmael points out that there is no God or, maybe, providence that rewards man for good deeds and punishes him for the crime. The universe is completely indifferent to man: it is very chaotic and has no end. (Selby 51) He compares life to a sea that can be beautiful and horrible at the same time.
The whiteness of the whale may be a symbol of goodness and right or a symbol of nothingness and absurdity (Buell, p. 65). If nothingness, Moby Dick may well be the mask of a God that no one suspects exist in the universe. The sea is dark, mysterious, and dangerous. At any moment, Moby Dick, or some equally unknowable monster (a giant squid, perhaps), can rise from the depths to destroy the fragile world of the sailor. In the end, Ahab and the crew of the Pequod struggle for three days with the leviathan from the deep. The good vs. evil factor in this novel takes part in Ahab’s insane journey to destroy evil (Dow, p. 431).
Ahab puts his crew at risk by trying to gain his own personal vengeance on Moby Dick. His ignorance and selfishness cause his crew to sink down to the bottom of the ocean along with the Pequod. Moby Dick is portrayed as more than just a savage beast, but as the mask behind God (Beaver, p. 17). This white whale not only kills Ahab’s crew but also seals Ahab’s fate by killing Ahab before Ahab kills him. Ahab costs his fellow sailors their lives and never does gain vengeance on the beast that has tortured him his whole life.
Works Cited
Beaver, Harold. “On the Composition of Moby-Dick” (1972), in Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, ed. Harold Beaver. New York: Penguin (1972; reprint 1986).
Bryant, John. “Allegory and Breakdown in The Confidence-Man: Melville’s Comedy of Doubt.” Philological Quarterly 65, no. 1 1986
Buell, Lawrence. “Moby-Dick as Sacred Text” New Essays on Moby-Dick Ed. Richard H. Brodhead Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.
Dow, Janet “Ahab: The Fisher King.” Connecticut Review 2; 1969
Hardwick, Elizabeth. Herman Melville. New York: Viking, 2000.
Melville, Herman: “Moby-Dick or The Whale” vol. 6 of The Writings of Herman Melville, edited by Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle. Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University Press and Newberry Library, 1988.
Parker, Hershel, and Harrison Hayford, eds. Moby-Dick as Doubloon: Essays and Extracts 1851–1970. New York: Norton, 1970.
Selby, Nick, author and editor. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (Columbia Critical Guides series). New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Smith, Gayle L. “The Word and the Thing: Moby-Dick and the Limits of Language.” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, 31, no. 4 1985
Thomas, Tanselle. “Moby-Dick or The Whale” vol. 6 of The Writings of Herman Melville, edited by Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle. Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University Press and Newberry Library, 1988
Zoellner, Robert. The Salt-Sea Mastodon: A Reading of Moby-Dick. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973