In chapter 99, we watch as the doubloon transforms before our very eyes; from a piece of gold worth sixteen dollars as means of motivating the crew to more of a legend, similar to the painting in chapter 3. This painting is one that is muddled and soot-covered from years of smoking and lack of care, but the painting allows the audience to play with meaning and figure out how to read the novel. It is the same with the doubloon, however, less so with the novel itself and more with the characters’ morality and current mental state.Ahab in particular is fascinating, allowing the audience to peer into his beliefs, lining up with the descriptions Ishmael had heard about before ever having met the wayward captain. Ahab walks the deck, the same path daily, and yet it is here, it is now, in which he has a religious experience—one in which he is at its centre. “There’s something ever egotistical in mountain-tops… and all other grand and lofty things…”, Ahab states, “The firm tower, that is Ahab… the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab…” (Melville ???). In these declarations, the audience sees a man who would fight the sun, the man who is god-like, the man who is Ahab. At what point does perception become reality? In not only the minds of the crew, but also in the captain’s mind, Ahab is omnipotent—how far reaching is this power when the whale takes from the Ahab?