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Final Essay

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In the novel Moby-Dick, Melville uses Ahab to highlight how having an unhealthy obsession can take over a person’s whole self and eventually lead to madness. Ahab’s intentions from the beginning of the novel with the great White Whale were pretty visible and as it went on, his insanity became more deranged and more evident. This can be seen with the reversed ritualistic blessing of Ahab’s harpoon, his overall neglect and manipulation of his crew, and his rejection of Christian values. Melville points out what an unhealthy obsession looks like and how it leads to one’s downfall by also using religious and satanic imagery.  

In Chapter 113, The Forge, when Ahab drenches his harpoon with blood that Perth upgraded to help him defeat the White Whale. Melville writes, “‘Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!’ deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood” (Melville 532). Ahab performs a reverse baptism by drenching the weapon in pagan blood rather than holy water. His upgraded harpoon goes beyond the function as just a weapon, it symbolizes Ahab’s madness– his dedication to vengeance. By transforming the harpoon into a ritualistic object, Ahab’s obsession can be seen reshaping his reality. What was once just seen as a simple hunting tool turns into a weapon of mass destruction– an embodiment of his growing madness. His fixation is being put into the weapon itself, showing how obsession does not stay contained, that it in fact grows and intensifies until it consumes everything around it. 

Melville uses Ahab to show when a person allows vengeance to dominate their life and how it leads to self-destruction. Ahab believes the Sperm whale is out to get him and allows this thought to take control of his life. When in reality Moby Dick was just living his own life. So, since his attack, he’s been allowing Moby Dick to haunt his mind everyday and this is why he upgrades his harpoon, to make sure this “evil” thing is dead so it can not get him. It had at first consumed his mind and now it is consuming the physical objects around him. Ahab forges a harpoon that is as destructive and extreme as his obsession– and one that would eventually lead to his own demise. He created a superweapon to not only kill an animal but to kill a divine force, revealing how his anger and vengeance steered him away from reality, representing how a person can deteriorate from within. The upgraded harpoon reminds me of video games where you customize your character’s weapon to the max so they can deal more damage for the ultimate boss battle. The more upgraded, the better and Ahab had given personalized upgrades for his harpoon. He says “Here are my razors– the best of steel; here, and make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea” (Melville 532). His weapon at first did not have all the upgrades but as his obsession deepens, his weapon also gets upgraded. If this was a normal whale hunting journey, he wouldn’t need all the crazy upgrades but Ahab’s thirst is so strong for the chaos to the point that he has their blacksmith forge an upgraded weapon of death to use for the great White Whale. Because his weapon is so lethal, it puts him in more dangerous situations, giving him the confidence to defeat the White Whale, but the overconfidence is blinding him to the dangers around him. By pouring all of his energy into the enhancement of his weapon, Ahab neglected the well-being of himself and his crew, showing how obsession can fully control his thoughts and actions which can lead directly to one’s own self-destruction.  

With Ahab neglecting his crew goes to show that his obsession is leading him to being selfish even though he is the captain of the ship. He is in charge of all the men there and he should have more compassion for them. But, with him disregarding them and their lives reflects that he does not care about anything or anyone other than Moby Dick. Ahab’s lack of care for his crew can be seen ultimately in the end with all of their deaths (except Ishamael’s) and if he wasn’t so focused on the whale and was focused on his crew instead then the outcome could possibly be different for everyone. The disregard for his crew comes from his own belief that authority is absolute, elevating himself above moral responsibility and divine power. Ahab declares to Starbuck “There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod” (Melville 517). Ahab believes his status as a captain puts him in the same category as God ruling over earth and that his command should be followed with unquestioning obedience. Author Ryan LaMothe writes in his article, “Ahab’s carelessness is connected to a kind of idolatry, a kind of faith in his self-interested pursuit of vengeance. The crew of the Pequod are trusted as long as they serve the commands and aims of Ahab—instrumental faith… Ahab, like God, is sovereign, and as sovereign Ahab demands the loyalty of the crew in relation to the aims of the captain. They are to trust him blindly, like they trust God.” Ahab’s connection to idolatry and referring to himself as a God tells that he wishes to be worshipped. Plus, he demands loyalty and yet does nothing for his crew in return. He uses their help for his own gain, which is killing Moby Dick. His crew, specifically Starbuck, is seen calling him out. In chapter 134, The Chase—Second Day, Starbuck fights back against Ahab and says to him, “never, never wilt thou capture him, old man—In Jesus’ name no more of this, that’s worse than devil’s madness” (Melville 611). Starbuck is not referring to Ahab as a God or anything God-like but rather quite the opposite—the devil. Ahab’s madness is apparent to his crew and Ahab is seen as deranged even though he is their captain—their leader. This highlights that Ahab’s leadership is nowhere near God and that it is morally corrupt and misguided. 

After Ahab’s weapon gets its upgrade, he blesses it in Latin and the translation of what he says is “I do not baptize you in the name of the Father, but in the name of the Devil.” Ahab does a reverse blessing, a satanic-like ritual and calls upon the Devil rather than calling upon God.  He would rather get help and protection from evil forces rather than God’s strength against the White Whale. His fixation runs so deep that he corrupted the most sacred of ideas and instead of using faith to keep vengeance out of his heart, he uses it to keep it within. He abandons all forms of faith and chooses to turn to darkness itself to help destroy the whale. By deliberately summoning the Devil, Ahab shows that his fixation has reached a point where calling upon the spiritual world would bring him aid in his ultimate plan. Melville uses Ahab’s reverse blessing to show that obsession can harm a person’s mind and their actions so much that they are willing to violate moral boundaries and society values. During the time Melville wrote this and when it was released, society had valued Christianity. In Jonathan Cook’s article, he writes, “In broad terms, Ahab’s obsessive hunt for the White Whale constitutes a blasphemous pursuit of a creature that he believes acts in the capacity of a divine agent or principal, and it is likely only Ahab’s condition of “madness” that potentially assured antebellum readers that such sentiments did not represent a direct threat to the traditional Christian beliefs of the era.” While Ahab himself does not necessarily have Christian values, the society in which he lives does, and they take these Christian values to heart. His growing madness is portrayed as something that steers him from these shared beliefs. And Starbuck, who is a “Quaker by descent” represents this religious structure and stands in contrast to Ahab’s blasphemous behavior. Also, because Ahab is deemed as mentally unfit, his rejection to the Christian faith is a result of madness rather than reason. 

The reverse blessing continues and Ahab uses pagan blood from Queequeg, Tashtego and Daggoo. By using the pagan blood, it seals the deal for the blessing and shows how obsession has corrupted Ahab entirely. He is fully transforming his hunting weapon into a satanic weapon. Ahab made the conscious decision to use blood for his weapon in the ritual as it “scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood.” By using the blood from non-Christians, he believed it would make his upgraded harpoon stronger. He is rejecting the idea of the Christian faith and instead chooses to side with the Devil, believing that spiritual corruption is the only way that will lead him to his goal. Through Ahab’s blasphemy and rejection of Christianity, Melville suggests that the deliberate rejection of the Christian faith is not empowering, but more as a sign or moral collapse. Jonathan Cook’s also writes, “Instead of promising eternal life through the ingestion of the blood of Christ, as in the Christian sacrament of Communion, Ahab is proclaiming an eternal pact of death against the god-like White Whale, creating a blasphemous ritual to solidify his power over the crew and induct them into a satanic pact.”. Ahab is dragging his crew further into his mess as he makes them accomplices to the satanic-like ritual. His crew mates are different and have their own religious beliefs— such as Starbuck and his Christianity and Queequeg. So, by Ahab making his crew mates take part in his ritual shows that when an individual is obsessed it corrupts their moral and religious beliefs and also corrupts those around them. 

Every decision, thought and action is planned out carefully to reach the overall objective of destroying the White Whale. However, as Ahab gives his all into achieving the killing of Moby Dick, he becomes more unrecognizable and increasingly disconnected from reality as he crafts a tool of destruction that mirrors his corrupted mindset. Ahab becomes a representation of what happens when a person lets an obsession control their lives, leading them down all the wrong paths. 

         

Works Cited 

Cook, Jonathan A. “Melville, Moby-Dick, and Blasphemy.” Studies in American Fiction, vol. 49 no. 2, 2022, p. 145-173. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/saf.2022.a920136. LaMothe, R. Literature and Social Pathologies: Ahab’s Masculinity as a Distortion of Care and Faith. Pastoral Psychol 72, 49–63 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-022-01042-y

Final: Different Interpretations

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Throughout this class, us as students have not only been brushing up on our analyzing skills but ultimately have been pushed to back up our interpretations for the chapters of Moby Dick. Now that this class has ended, I’ve realized that chapter 100 of Moby Dick where we are introduced to  Captain Boomer who also lost a limb from the infamous whale, connects to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s The American Scholar. Emerson pushed on the idea that   student’s individual thoughts and ideas stem from our authentic self not to copy or repeat ideas from others. Thus reaching to a conclusion that our own interpretation of a text while different is respectable. Much like Ahab’s own interpretation of his loss of a limb was a personal attack whereas Captain Boomer’s interpretation was that the bite he endured was from an animal, which is something animals do. This reassures the idea that no text or experience will be interpreted the same by each individual. Two people can go through the same experiences yet the mindset they have will determine how they feel they were affected by that experience or text.  

In this chapter, Melville introduces another captain, Captain Boomer, as a man who also lost a limb from the Moby Dick as well. However for this character, the lost limb is from the upper half of the body. Losing an arm is different from losing a leg, both tragic of course, but yet one of them lost more stability than the other. That is exactly what Ahab lost, stability, not only physically but mentally. During the discussion of the capturing of the sperm whale he asks the captain boomer if he was able to catch him the second time he saw him, to which he responds, “Didn’t want to try to; ain’t one limb enough? What should I do without this other arm?”(481)  Captain Boomer cannot fathom why he would want to try again because he could risk losing another arm and to be without one arm is already bad enough. He emphasizes this to Ahab as if it is something that he can relate to and begins wondering why he should jeopardize himself like that again for he knows that in comparison to the bite of a whale, he simply cannot compete. In Emerson’s The American Scholar, Emerson speaks not the past stating “The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar, is, the mind of the Past,–in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the influence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth,–learn the amount of this influence more conveniently,–by considering their value alone.” While Emerson is talking about learning from the past from different forms, ultimately to reach the truth. The truth being the “value” that the info outlet had at the time, during what time it was written, etc. All the details that can sometimes be brushed over are important to gain an honest interpretation and perspective of what one might be learning about. Much like this interaction between Captain Boomer and Ahab,  Ahab is learning the details of what happened to Boomer and he is attentive to the value of this information. They are their own books, waiting to be read and understood.  

Captain Boomer continues his discussion with Ahab stating, “And I’m thinking Moby Dick doesn’t bite so much as he swallows.” (481) Boomer believes that the bite form the whale is not within the same context of satisfactory as it might be for other animals and as it is for humans when eating their favorite food. If the whale had wanted to hurt a human with intention it would have gone in for a second bite, it could have easily devoured the human considering the difference in size. With the back up of his crewmate Bunger saying “…it is quite impossible for him to completely digest even a man’s arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the White Whale’s malice is only his awkwardness.”(481) Bunger further attests to the belief that the whale’s bites are not ill intended, for his “awkwardness” is just being a whale. It is part of being a whale and should have been taken into consideration when whaling. Apart from adapting to the ocean, whalers are to consider the living beings in their home. The ocean is the home of the whale and the men on the boat are invading their boundary by not only being there but in their attempt to capture them for human benefit. Boomer and Bungers beliefs come from their time dealing with whales. As Emerson takes on wisdom he explains “Of course, he who has put forth his total strength in fit actions, has the richest return of wisdom.” The time spent understanding the whale and knowing that the animal is just doing what an animal does has been beneficial to their whaling journey. As they do not try to continue to poke at the whale and instead just respect it from a distance. 

The difference between these men and Ahab’s beliefs is evident through their conversation and during the end of the conversation Ahab still insists that “But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures.”(482) Ahab feels a huge amount of anger towards “thing” and is compelling him like a magnet to find him and punish the whale. For Ahab to say “still be hunted, for all that.” Even after the other captain shared his experience with the whale it shows that the conversation did not have any affect on him. Amplifying his revenge, Ahab decided to add the loss of limb from another captain to the mental list of reasons why is seeking this whale. His anger is so strong that Bunger even points out, “this man’s blood—bring the thermometer!—it’s at the boiling point!—his pulse makes these planks beat!—sir!”(482) During this discussion of the infamous sperm whale, it becomes evident to the other captain and outsiders that Ahab’s anger towards the whale is very irrational and crazed. These men are terrified to even see the anger vibrating off Ahab just from talking about the creature. The captains do not see eye to eye in regard to this situation and while one of them shares compassion for the whale and is at peace with not pursuing the capture of Moby Dick, Ahab is not on the same page. Melville captures the feelings on paper in a way to make the readers understand just how much of a difference the circumstance can be for each individual regardless of a shared experience. Much like Ahab’s mentality in this situation, Emerson states “In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking” Emerson believed to think that the right way of thinking is to think for yourself, or as he puts it “man thinking” doing so you avoid becoming a “mere thinker/parrot of other men’s thinking” Even after Ahab had a discussion with the other captain who had a similar experience to him, he did not change his mind about how he felt. He was still angry and wanted to seek out revenge. Ahab is a perfect example of a man who thinks for himself, as his opinion did not falter and continued the same even after hearing others opinions. 

Closing off, Melville’s choice to write about Ahab and Boomer’s expereince being similar yet have different reactions towards the whale shows that sometimes two people cannot feel the same about the same situation. Much like Emerson’s The American Scholar who pushes the idea of individuality coming from our own interpretation of books, film, etc. Ahab chose to exemplify this in the chapter, he did not change his mind about how he felt despite the wisdom from Boomer. He interpreted the whale attack as a personal attack, thus seeking out revenge whereas Boomer had no ill intention for the whale. 

Works Cited

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Emerson–“The American Scholar”, archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/amscholar.html. Accessed 18 Dec. 2025. 

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Penguin Books, 2020. 

Final Essay – Vain Unity within the Pequod and the U.S.

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 In Moby Dick, Herman Melville uses the Pequod’s doomed voyage as a consequence of vain unity throughout the novel. The inability to unite under rational judgment and respect for autonomy shows how Ahab’s monomaniacal leadership, the crew’s coerced obedience, and the dismantled social order of the Pequod undermines possibilities of a collective goal – successful whaling, profit, and a safe communal voyage – that ultimately lead the entire crew towards destruction. These elements within the novel are direct parallels of tensions within the United States at the time Melville wrote the novel, a period marked by conflict over slavery, the deep-cutting erosion of democratic compromise, and the rise of extremist leadership – a time marked with the rise of division rather than cohesion. 

Throughout the novel, Melville frames the Pequod as a place of community and cooperation. Whaling voyages are a promise of shared labor, risk, and reward – an economic and social system dependent upon mutual trust and a collective goal. Ishmael initially views the ship as a kind of democracy, referring to it as a nation-state, which is populated by men of various backgrounds from across the globe whose labor surpasses the national and cultural differences amongst them all. However, this political pluralism is proven very fragile amidst the emergence of Ahab’s authoritarian rule over the Pequod and its crew, gradually undermining the ship’s communal structure and transforming the crew’s labor into coerced participation in his journey to kill the White Whale. What starts out as an enterprise built on cooperation and trust becomes a vessel of singular obsession of the White Whale, revealing how easily unity can be crushed under a centralized power. 

Ahab’s authority over the Pequod exemplifies how obsessive authority and leadership can dismantle a structuralized sense of unity for a lesser good. From the moment Ahab reveals his true intentions on leading the Pequod – to hunt down Moby Dick at any cost, even the cost of his and the crew’s lives – he then replaces the ship’s commercial purpose for his own personal vendetta. Ahab declares, “All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks” (Melville, 165), insisting that Moby Dick represents a type of evil that must be condemned and killed at all costs. From this moment, the White Whale is framed as a metaphysical evil, elevating Ahab’s private obsession into a moral imperative. Many traditional Americanist readings portray Ahab as a figure of “totalitarian will”, whose authority tolerates nothing along the lines of dissent and demands absolute submission to his authority (Pease, 110). Captain Ahab’s leadership thus becomes abstract as well as totalitarian as resistance is pushed far from reach and considered a moral betrayal as the book progresses. However, Ahab’s power is not grounded solely in the consent of the crew, but also in his charisma, experience, and intimidation. His body consists of scars, a prosthetic, ivory leg, and prophetic rhetoric that renders him as an almost mythical presence in Ishmael’s eyes. Starbuck, the ship’s moral conscience, recognizes the danger of Ahab’s quest, calling it “blasphemous, monstrous” (Melville, 223), and yet is still the only character throughout Moby Dick who attempts to make a stand against Ahab. In the end, his moral clarity reigns ineffective through his repeated hesitation to confront Ahab and his refusal to kill him in the end when given the chance. It goes to prove that authoritarian unity can paralyze an individual’s better judgement and ethicality. In his writing, Melville suggests that when absolute allegiance is demanded of an authoritarian, morality alone cannot prevent the catastrophe of vain unity and leadership. 

The communal obedience of the Pequod’s crew further reveals dangers of unity when stripped of one’s physical and metaphysical autonomy. Though composed of men from diverse backgrounds, the sailors are gradually combined into a singular mess under Ahab’s will. The absorption of all of these diverse characters into a single wave of conscience occurs through a rather ritualized performance rather than a politically democratic agreement. When Ahab presents the doubloon to the crew, he nails the gold coin to the mass and invites the crew to interpret what they see or feel when observing the coin, yet each interpretation ultimately circles back to a singular sense of obsession despite the continual differences in interpretation per each man. This reinforces Ahab’s dominance over the crew, sealing their loyalty through an oath that institutes ritual submission: “Drink ye harpooners! Drink and swear” (Melville, 179). Arguably, such moments reveal how collective identity aboard the Pequod is manufactured rather than chosen, showing how authority converts difference into a type of submission (Pease, 119). Unity aboard the Pequod is less a result of shared values, as each member of the crew has their own reason for being aboard the ship in the first place, but rather of enforced allegiance. There is no chose for them to back out of the voyage so far in; once the voyage begins, it takes many years for them to return back home to Nantucket, if at all, leaving them to succumb to the will of their authoritarian captain and sustain the all-consuming goal of killing Moby Dick. Even Starbuck eventually succumbs, despite being more of a doubter and free-thinker throughout the novel, ultimately admitting, “I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too” (Melville, 227). Starbuck is a crucial character for presenting obedience as surrender rather than acceptance, exposing a sense of moral conflict without autonomy over one’s self.

 A social and moral order aboard the Pequod collapses, so does autonomy. The Pequod once acted as a microcosm of democratic labor and shared profit, one that upheld American economics and society, instead becoming a kind of dictatorship as the novel progresses, driven solely by the will of Captain Ahab. Ishmael states during the voyage, “Ahab was tyrannical; a tyrant in fact” (Melville, 214). This singular quote strips the novel of any romantic ambiguity surrounding Ahab’s leadership of the crew and their voyage overseas. “The collective enterprise is overtaken by a single dominating vision” (Buell, 136), dramatizing the collapse of national concord and abandoning the crew’s original purpose of successfully hunting whales and collecting spermaceti, leaving that sense of unity in a vain and destructive mess. Though the entirety of Moby Dick includes foreshadowing of the Pequod’s demise, the collapse of social order is the most prominent in ensuring its catastrophic end. The shipwreck in the final chapter is something that was inevitable since the moment Ahab made it known what his true intentions were. It produced a system that valued loyalty to the captain over rational judgment and accountability. Each crew member is a valid participant in the authoritarian rule, whether actively or passively, by helping to sustain such a problematic system and refusing to absolve it. Melville presents each character’s obedience as a moral choice shaped by power, one that cannot be excused as per the back-and-forth judgement and final submission of Starbuck. 

Melville’s critique of vain unity is reflective of the political climate of the United States in the 1850s. At the time, the nation was divided socially, economically, and politically over slavery and Westward Expansion, giving way to a sectional extremism. Situating Moby Dick within this historical moment in our history, it can be argued that its enduring relevance lies in the state’s refusal to resolve national contradictions into a single moral vision (Buell, 145), fueled instead by power and personal gain rather than communal agreement. Similarly, the transnational reading of Pease’s article challenges the assumption that American unity is inherently virtuous, revealing how appeals to cohesion often conceal domination (Pease, 112). Within Moby Dick, the Pequod thus becomes a warning to the reader, using allegory to state that unity pursued without reason or autonomy leads to destruction. 

Moby Dick  portrays the doomed voyage of the Pequod as a tragic, yet inevitable, outcome of vain unity, one that is corrupted by obsession and authoritarianism. Through Ahab’s monomaniacal rule, the crew’s coerced obedience, and the dismantled social order, Melville demonstrated how the suppression of rational and moral judgement and the erasure of an individual’s autonomy can undermine the success of a collective goal. He not only critiques Ahab’s monomaniacal leadership but also the political culture of his own nation in the 1850s by exposing the dangers of vain unity. Moby Dick successfully parallels the antebellum period within America, deepening the warning of lack of balance, structure, and communal morals ultimately leads us – whether aboard a ship or within the politics and society of our own nation – to ruin.

Works Cited

Buell, Lawrence. “The Unkillable Dream of the Great American Novel: Moby-Dick as Test Case.” American Literary History, vol. 20 no. 1, 2008, p. 132-155. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/233009

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick Or, the Whale. Edited by Andrew Delbanco, Penguin Books, 1992.

Pease, Donald. C. L. R. James, Moby Dick, and the Emergence of Transnational American Studies, John Hopkins University, Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, Volume 56, Number 3, Autumn 2000, pp, 93-123.

Final Project Brainstorm

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What you still need to learn/do for your final project

Honestly, I am not entirely sure what I want to focus on for my final project. But to throw an idea out there, I will be doing a close reading expanding more on obsession and the negative effects it has on a person while specifically focusing on Ahab. I still need to do the research though and figure out what examples I want to use. I would still like to explore other ideas for the final though. And, something I still need to learn is close reading and explaining myself more. Close reading has never been my strong suit and I still have a lot to learn.

Final

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For my final essay, I’m not 100% sure I will write about this but one thing has been on my mind throughout the semester is the fact that the boat was referred to as a woman and why that matters/ is important. When the story mostly consists of men, the most important “woman” is the boat aka the foundation for them whale men. My thoughts on this are all over the place at the moment and pretty messy so I need to focus on what I’m trying to say about this.

week 13

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What you still need to learn/do for your final project

I want to first say, how I have never really tapped into close reading like this. This class has definitely made me learn a new set of skills when it comes to writing. I need to work on my defining moments in close reading. I have a clear idea of what I want to say, but I get lost in translation when I’m trying to express why it matters. So I think Dr. Pressman’s comments on both of my essays, I will be taking that to heart to make sure I am delivering the best final I can give to her.

I want my ideas to be fully clear because I have so much to say when it comes to my final idea.