The reason why Ishmael was full of thoughts about Captain Ahab was because the mysteriousness oozing off of Captain Ahab attracts him. At the end of chapter 16, Ishmael was thinking about Captain Ahab after listening to the perspective of his other captains. He thought: “As I walked away…what had been incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain vagueness and painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the same time, I felt sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don’t know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange awe of him, but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it…Though I felt impatience at what seemed like a mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then.” (Melville 89). This feeling that Ishmael is having is probably not the first time he has ever felt because he had the same curiosity towards Queequeg, and it attracts him to it. In this case, the mysteriousness and vagueness that Captain Ahab gives spike Ishmael’s curiosity. We all know that for the first couple of chapters, Ishmael was keenly reading the room, the background, and its people. Everything that he read, he analyzed to the fullest. I believe that Melville purposefully locked us in Ishmael’s perspective mainly because Melville also wants us to read people’s movements, but through Ishmael. It almost felt like we were Ishmael himself trying to figure out everything that we encountered. The reason why Ishamel was attracted to Captain Ahab’s mysteriousness was because he had not seen Captain Ahab yet and was listening to other captains’ perspectives. Ishmael felt sympathy, sorrow, and awe for Captain Ahab, but at the same time, he was not sure about it, which tells us readers that he does not hand-on know who Captain Ahab really is, and therefore, Ishmael’s thoughts and feelings were not a hundred percent accurate. This is why Ishamel’s thoughts head in different directions while he kept thinking about Captain Ahab. In a way, I really like how we are forced to read people through Ishmael’s perspective because we are also attracted by it, and it makes us ponder the possibilities that this novel offers, and it prompts us to read more about it. Such a fascinating way to write a novel.
Moby-Dick
ECL 522: Fall 2025. Professor Pressman
Hello Mylo! I really enjoyed your blog post; whilst reading, I was confused as to why Melville chose to hide Captain Ahab from us, leaving us with blank spots as to what his character is actually like. Arguably, this was a good choice in developing not only Ahab’s character, but Ishmael’s as well. As you said, Ishmael spends his time reading his environments and the people within them, but, for the first time, Ishmael cannot read a person and their body for himself; he is forced to accept the descriptions of Captain Peleg and Bildad and take them for the truth without being able to mull over Ahab’s character for himself.
Good points about the mysteriousness and how Ishmael is drawn in. I wonder if now you can ask questions about WHY the novel presents this: what do we readers learn or think through Ishmael as he is drawn to this mysteriousness? In other words, can you move from pointing out things in the pages of the story to questioning why the story does what it does?