Captain Ahab

In Herman Melville’s novel, “Moby Dick”, the protagonist, Ahab, is a whaling captain. He is fixated on killing and conquering a huge white whale that had bitten off his leg in a previous encounter. Though his manic behavior may be regarded by some as a sign of greatness, this is not the case. Instead, Captain Ahab’s character is that of a revenge-obsessed, egotistical, and mentally unstable man. In the beginning of the novel, the narrator explains that Captain Ahab paces the deck of his ship, the Pequod, with his ivory leg. He does this so often, in fact, that the ship’s floorboards are dented and show abrasion. The narrator describes the floorboards as, “so familiar to his tread, that they were all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk.” The indication here is of Ahab’s obsessed mental state. He was so obsessed, that he paced around every day, to the point of wearing down the ship’s floor. This also indicates that Ahab had lost his sanity long before the Pequod set sail.
As the story continues, Captain Ahab’s egotistical traits shine through. Though the Pequod was supposed to set sail on a “commercial” whaling voyage, Ahab selfishly changed the plans. Instead of …show more content…
As Ahab spotted Moby Dick, he and some of his crew got into several small chasing boats, harpoons in hand, to kill the whale. Almost immediately, sharks targeted Ahab’s boat, leaving the other boats alone. This didn’t faze Ahab, however. He was dead set on hunting the whale. The narrator also described Moby Dick in a majestic and supernatural manner. He stated that Moby Dick was “shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back into the deep.” I think that this quote shows that Ahab saw Moby Dick as a supernatural and god-like creature. This also is another reason why I believe that Ahab was on the verge of complete