Moby Dick Personal Response

In the book Moby Dick, the antagonist, Captain Ahab, spends the majority of his time on a quest to kill the infamous white whale. Ahab is incredibly obsessed with finding Moby Dick that he is willing to risk everything, including the lives of his crew. My whale equivalent of Moby Dick has been the never-ending brawl to receive first-rate grades. The accomplishment of achieving an A is always just out of reach. Year after year, I tell myself that I will work persistently and ace all my exams and yet, year after year, it never works out. The constant uphill skirmish with grades due to procrastination, extracurricular activities, and unadorned laziness has led to progress reports with the taste of B’s on it. Although a B for a grade is acceptable in the majority of eyes, it is something that haunts me in the same way that Captain Ahab is disturbed by the white whale. …show more content…
In order to receive all the values from your education, one is told that they need to strive for an A. I claw my way through homework assignments and review guides alike, but A’s are not effortless to come by. They taunt you from a distance and cause you enter into a state of delirium. Ishmael, from Moby Dick, describes this state of madness when he says, “There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness” (Melville). Ishmael is describing the ways that people can be antagonized to the point of insanity. People begin to lose their ways caused by actions that should not even fathom them. Unfortunately, that is the line of attack that I get caught up in my drive to acquire all A’s. It pushes you to the brink of madness. Furthermore, Captain Ahab never relinquishes his fight; this is shown when he states, “Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee”