Moby Dick -- A Story to Remember

While reading Moby Dick, I can't imagine anyone having a particular affinity for Captain Ahab. Driven, mad, and intent upon only his revenge, he doesn't strike me as the most sympathetic character of the book. That title might go to Starbuck or Queequeg before it went to him. Yet, as I was doing a little research for this post, I found an article that talked about "The Tragic Meaning of Moby Dick" (written by Henry Myers and published by New England Quarterly Inc). I found the article interesting, because for the first time, someone was casting Ahab in a noble light. Myers was arguing that the story isn't the allegory that we all thought it was, but rather that it was the tale about a man finding the meaning of his own life.

Now, I don't think I'm qualified to say whether or not Myers was right. There seems to be plenty of allegory within the book as well, but I think it's interesting that he makes Ahab into a hero, or at least the heart of the story. In the last few chapters of the book, there seemed to be nothing but foreshadowing. In "The Hat" Chapter 130, a bird flies up to Ahab and "was before the old man's eyes, the long hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with his prize" (476). Before that there was a huge storm that rearranged all the compasses, they met with another boat that imploringly asked for their aid, and Ahab rejected them. All of them, one by one, warning the crew and their captain that what they were doing wasn't right, that they should head back and forget Moby Dick. But Captain Ahab continues, and by doing so, is the death of his entire crew.

(pezi.com) by Anthony Saxman 

But, Myers makes the argument that, "Melville felt that whatever essential meaning lies in Moby Dick could be found in the life of a living Ahab by an Ahab himself." (Myers 19). He argues that all of the meaning in the story comes from Ahab, rather than from the tiny allegorical notions that we've been finding so fascinating. 

I'm not sure I believe this, simply because Ahab had so many opportunities to turn back but refused to do so. If he is the hero of the story, then it is simply as a cautionary tail. We talked about how Moby Dick was like a machine, about how the long winded sections of the book help to make the single sentences of plot that much more meaningful. Maybe that's the way with Ahab as well. We went over how they killed the great whales over and over again, going into minute detail and talking about the drudgery of constantly having to squeeze the oil out of the whale's fat only to discard it and need to start again. But Ahab's death, the captain of the ship, the driver of the plot, only gets a few lines to describe his death, "the line ran through the groove; -- ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone." (507). Hardly the death of a hero. 

Yet, as I went back looking for that quote, I came across another one, one that I had forgotten about. Moby Dick had just sunk the Pequod and Ahab shouts out in agaony, "Death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains?" (507) I think, I hope, that this is the moment that Ahab realizes his mistake. That he realizes that there is more to life than hunting down lost pride. He lost all of it again, when Moby Dick sank his ship and he wasn't even there to be with her when she went down. 

Myers argues that the critics didn't understand the form of the story when they first read it, and that's why they go into allegory and try to understand the hidden meanings of what Melville might have been trying to say. That the story was just about Ahab and his obsession, that the whale was just a whale, the ship just a ship. I think I can agree with that to an extent. I think we could learn a lot from taking the story literally. We can learn the regret of a man who realized that he had made a mistake only moments before his death, and only after the most precious thing he'd been entrusted with had been destroyed. But I also think the story is a tad allegorical. Maybe not because Melville wanted it to be, but because we have decided it is. The machine that is Moby Dick, what it has been able to accomplish, has captivated audiences for over a hundred years. There's only so much you can say about a simple plot of revenge. There is a lot more you can say about the allegorical content of the whiteness of the whale. 

So what does that mean? 

Honestly? I think it means that Moby Dick was an exceptional piece. That there is no way to really understand it exactly the way the author meant it to be understood, or even exactly the way the person next to you understood it. It speaks to its audience in different ways, delivering different lessons that people can get together and talk about. It is something that has layers upon layers of dissection material, it will never get old because there will always be something to say, some new passage to interpret. And that is what makes it so interesting. I'm glad to have read it.