Ahab and Machinery

I love tying Moby Dick to the technological age and see how the same principles apply. In class today we were encouraged to not worry ourselves so much with what the whale symbolizes. I wanted to analyze the story more on my own in regards to Ahab and machinery, inspired by today’s class discussion.

In his “Approach to Moby-Dick,”  Stephen C. Ausband states that “several critics of Moby-Dick have suggested that Ahab’s chief sin is his separation from humanity.” We have talked a lot about the machinery and why they serve a purpose, but I also started to think of what the character of Ahab symbolizes and suggests in terms of machinery. 

I think that Ahab symbolizes the one who over-indulges in technology and digital culture. Kristen gave a great blog post last week of needing to do all things in moderation. Then Brittany also gave a wonderful blog post that discussed the benefits of playing video games and how they help us. For me, Ahab represents the person who ignores these bits of wisdom and allows himself to be succumbed into the digital world so much so, that he separates himself from humanity. 

He withdraws himself so deeply from human connection then he is left to his own thoughts and desire for more power that comes with machinery. It begins with his leg, which we’ve established in class that it represent Moby Dick and it shows the end result of using machinery. He also has his crew which labor for him and his self-serving will. He relies on bits of machinery such as the quadrant and compass that he even will rebuild to give him what he wants. Even the words that Melville chooses to describe Ahab throughout the novel suggest a tint of industrialization and lack of human quality in his inability to feel emotions or empathy. 

Does Ahab represent what could possibly happen when we are too deep into the digital culture? Will we lose the ability to relate and communicate with other humans on a personal level? Will we lose our deep thinking part of our brain? Will we slowly be shedding from ourselves our capacity of intellect and ethics?

I don’t think any of these things will happen so long as we do what was mentioned earlier, and that is to do all things in moderation and not let the digital culture swallow us up. But just like Ahab, if we let even one thing govern our lives, then we can end up dazed and lost.