Good_and_Evil_of_Moby_Dick_and_Captain_Ahab

Good and Evil of Moby Dick and Captain Ahab.

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is centered on the themes of the good and evil of Moby Dick and Captain Ahab.

Here are some examples of the good nature of Captain Ahab. “Still Ahab must not be dismissed as merely evil. In his struggle against all those things that limit human life, there is heroic grandeur of humanity long effort to know the meaning of existence,” (Melville 292). It means that you should not judge somebody by their actions. “He is noble and reli gious as well as sacrilegious, grand, ungodly, godlike man,” (Melville 292). Means that Captain Ahab is also a religious person. “In seeking vengeance upon a dumb brute that attacked and maimed him out of blind instinct, he may seem merely mad, as Starbuck would like to believe, but Ahab’s madness is of a deeper sort. In the attack of the white whale, he has felt the pain and shock by which humans beings must recognize their own morality,” (Melville 291). It means that just because Captain Ahab is mad doesn’t mean that it is not for a good reason.

Here are some examples of the good nature in Moby Dick. “The white whale is a test of limitations, of moving onto being happy and content,” (Helium 3). The whale is something that Ahab needs to be happy about and get on with his life, which like the quote says, “a test of acceptable limitations.” “The white whale is white for

this symbolic reason and the narrator of the story comes to realization of how out of reach Moby Dick actually is that the quest is folly,” (Helium 3). They are saying the color white on the whale is God who surrounds himself with good. “Melville shows that although the whale, symbolical whale, is mostly representative of good, no one thing is purely good or purely evil,” (Helium 1). That the whale is not all that evil through his actions.

Here are some examples of the evil nature of Captain Ahab. “Ishmael, (the narrator) responds that the biblical Ahab was a wicked king, but Peleg insists that the name is simply a misfortunate, not a predicti on of Ahab’s character,” (Rowe 95). This is saying that the biblical Ahab is evil, but it shouldn’t have to be described like the biblical Ahab. “Ahab is a defiant rebel against all human limitations. He will sacrifice life itself in his search for truth: Truth hath no confines,” (Melville 279). This means that Ahab will do anything to kill Moby Dick if his whole being has to do or die on his voyage to kill Moby Dick. “Captain Ahab was a man who had left life on land, a wife, and children all behind in his quest after Moby Dick,” (Helium 2). Means that Captain Ahab does not care about anybody or anything, but killing Moby Dick and going back to his normal life. “But it is Ishmael, not Ahab, who realizes the meaning of this fateful voyage, it is through Ishma els vision that we see that Ahab’s quest for absolute truth must result in suicide, the sacrifice of the ship of humanity,” (Melville 292). This means will risk anything or anyone to get his revenge on Moby Dick for biting his leg off. “Once the maimed Cap tain Ahab (who combines qualities of the biblical Job with John Milton’s Satan), subverts the voyage from catastrophe seems

foredoomed,” (Rowe 92). Means that Captain Ahab is just like John Milton’s Satan from the bible or Job, like they used from the bible.

Some say that there is some evil in Moby Dick, and here are some examples of things that make Moby Dick is evil: “Ahab believes he sees evil in Moby Dick a principle of absolute evil, but Ishmael observes early in the novel that the great white whale has no face, no expression: people read only their own meanings into blank whiteness,” (Melville 292). Ahab sees evil in Moby Dick because of what he looks like; of course he is so huge and nothing can destroy it. “On an earlier voyage, Ahab lost a leg to the jaws of the giant whale known as Moby Dick,” (Melville 291). It expresses how evil Moby Dick was to people who tried to kill him. “Moby Dick seemed combining possessed by all the angels that fell from heaven,” (Melville 297). This means that all the angels that were good fell from heaven and landed in hell and turned into the great white whale Moby Dick.

And to sum it all up, these are the reasons of why there is good and evil in everybody even if you are an animal or even a human being.