At this point he has (presumably) already dealt with Ahab’s relation to the white whale. We are reminded of Ahab comparing Moby Dick to the wall, the mask that exists between the perceived world and whatever lies beneath the surface. Something is “pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself” (Whitman 3) into this surface. Yet Ahab expresses the fear that there might, after all, be nothing behind. That “there’s naught beyond” is exactly what Ishmael discovers in this chapter and it is also the chapter where Ishmael is most like Ahab, in that he approaches the subject obsessively and ruthlessly, much like the Captain himself chases after Moby Dick. Ishmael’s pursuit of the meaning of whiteness and Ahab’s pursuit of the white whale are placed here side by side. Why so, unless Ahab’s story is, in fact, Ishmael’s story, told so as to help the latter understand his own inner struggle? So Ahab would not be merely a projection, “mimicking ideas and images that Ishmael has already voiced” (Bryant 73), but he becomes the outlet for Ishmael to analyse and try to give a voice to his own experience.
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Ahab’s story is Ishmael’s story, retold by Ishmael himself in order to voice his own grief at a loss he is unable to account for in any other way—"I do not describe the wounded man, I myself become the wounded man" (Cambon
Ahab’s story is Ishmael’s story, retold by Ishmael himself in order to voice his own grief at a loss he is unable to account for in any other way—"I do not describe the wounded man, I myself become the wounded man" (Cambon