Moby Dick

As I pointed out in class today, there are many striking similarities between  the ending of Moby Dick and the battle sequence in the Iliad. The first connection is the presence of prophecies. While they are a normal cultural and religious aspect of Antiquity, the idea of something as supernatural as a prophecy in Moby Dick surprised me. Going along with the more general similarities, the fact that an entire crew is chasing a violent, demonic monster. This theme is the basis for many ancient Greek literature, especially in the Odyssey.

Now for the more specific connections: The brotherhood but also the differences between Ahab and Fedallah. In the Iliad, Achilles and Hector are both great war heroes, and they even sympathize with each other, but their personalities are completely opposite. Achilles is intensely driven, violent, and angry, like Ahab. In fact, the source of Achilles’s anger is the loss of his friend, and for the duration of the book he is seeking revenge. Ahab is mourning his physical loss and promises he will get revenge on the culprit.

The prophecy that Hector will die before Achilles affects him heavily. The ironic part of this is that Achilles ends up being the one to kill Hector; ensuring his own death. In a very violent and drawn out battle scene, Achilles kills Hector and weeps for his death. Part of Greek tradition is the towing away of the loser by carriage. Hector, a noble prince with his wife and children watching, is promptly tied to the back of the carriage and is dragged around the fighting ring. His body becomes completely battered, bruised, and almost dismembered. In Moby Dick, Fedallah’s fate is identical. Not only is Ahab the cause of it, but he is dragged away via rope and his body goes through a very violent, post-mortem mangling.

There are so many similarities that is impossible to find the end of Moby Dick surprising. Achilles, the most powerful warrior in all of Greece, dies the boring and anticlimactic death of being shot in the heel. Ahab is caught by a rope. The use of foreshadowing by mimicking the most famous scene of the Iliad was a brilliant move on Melville’s part.

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