Moby Dick

In a novel swarming with symbols, many of which the narrator recognizes and expounds upon, the most prominent is the novel’s titular whale, Moby Dick. To Ishmael, the whiteness of the whale represents the most terrifying aspects of metaphysical reality, the great unknown beyond what can be merely registered with the senses. To Starbuck, the whale represents the natural anarchy that ruins good fortune and good commerce. It is Ahab’s perception, however, that drives the story. To Ahab, the whale is the summation of a life when viewed in hindsight, with an emphasis on the natural corruption that leads to loss of vigor and mobility. It was Moby Dick that took Ahab’s leg, and time that made his hair grey; Ahab seems to blame the whale for both things. The whale also represents a related failure of a life’s work, a life spent whaling with only a small share of physical capital to show for it. Ahab’s is a world deserted of spiritual and social pleasure, a morbid world in which only the physical self exists in its slow and inexorable deterioration. Killing Moby Dick would put a punctuation to that life, ending it with meaning and self-direction.