Chapter 44, “The Chart,” gives us some insight on Ahab’s plan to find Moby Dick. He is obssessively charting a course for the Pequod that may guarantee them an encounter with the whale, but there are too many variables. We also get insight into Ahab’s fixation and how it shapes his every waking (and dreaming) moment. His thoughts are about Moby Dick alone and he is slowly consumed by them. In page 220, Melville writes, “God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.” The mention of Prometheus is an interesting one because it highlights the consuming quality of fire, something that is evidently going on in Ahab’s mind. However, recalling the story of Prometheus, he was punished for defying the gods and giving fire to humanity, which caused him to be tortured for eternity. This chapter is presumably in Ishmael’s point of view, which means that choosing this reference purposefully paints Ahab in a heroic and tortured light, although Ahab is clearly helping no one in madly chasing the whale. Ishmael has started idolizing Ahab, specifically starting from the moment he agreed to the crazed chase for the whale, and now sees him as a type of mad intellectual, tragically cursed for thinking too much. Additionally, in the story, an eagle would eat Prometheus’ liver every night, which is parallel to the passage above, only for Ahab it’s “a vulture that feeds upon that heart forever,” and the vulture is a creature of his own making. This part is evidence that Ishmael does recognize Ahab’s part in his own suffering, and he pities him, but the tone in which he describes this still paints Ahab in a poetic light and as a kind of victim. As Ahab becomes increasingly fixated on catching the whale, Ishmael observes in wonder and admiration.