So we finally meet Captain Ahab, the “ungodly, god-like” captain of the Pequod with an intimidating, fearsome aura. As it turns out, Ahab has a vengeance-filled obsession over the titular whale Moby Dick, a whale who bit off his leg. In chapter 36, there is one part of his speech that stood out to me.

After his shipmates ask Ahab why he is seeking vengeance on one particular whale for taking his leg, Ahab replies, “All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond.” (Melville 178)

I found this part of his speech interesting because Ahab is trying to tell us that humans tend to fixate on something in the hopes of a reward if they “strike through” it. The more we try to find something valuable in what we desire, the more obsessed we are over it. Too much obsession, however, can end up hurting us.

A prisoner is to a wall as Ahab is to Moby Dick. Much like how a prisoner obsesses over freedom so they break through the wall to find what they’re looking for, Ahab’s desire for revenge is what makes him obsess over Moby Dick. The whale acts like a wall to him because it is still somewhere in the ocean, and he feels taunted by its continued existence. He thinks there is “naught beyond” hunting Moby Dick for a couple of reasons: if the whole reason he is going out to sea is to hunt down one whale that so tormented him, despite there being other whales to hunt, it would not “fetch [him] much in [their] Nantucket market]” as Starbuck points out (Melville 177). Even worse, the whaling voyage might lead to his entire crew dying before they successfully hunt down Moby Dick.

I think this goes to show how unhealthily obsessed Captain Ahab is over Moby Dick, but it also shows us how excessive obsession can blind us from pursuing our real desires. Ahab was once (and still is) a great whaler, but his obsession over Moby Dick has turned him away from the joys of whaling. His lust for revenge has consumed him; no longer is he the same person he once was, his one goal is to hunt down the one monster that took his leg–even if it means dying in the end.