Moby Dick

Here is a link the Khan’s death in Star Treck 2: Wrath of Khan. He quoted Ahab like 5 times with this movie, and here even quotes Ahab’s last line…

In this chapter Ishmael sicusses his thoughts on the fear felt by this particular albino whale, stretching out to other albino people and creatures. This chapter really made me think and examine my own feelings on this God-like creature they’ve been chasing for most of the novel. I don’t feel its the whale being white that first casts it as such an impressive creature. It is the harpoons in its back, the stories told of its anger and destruction that firsts cast it as a monstrous and powerful thing. The way I see it, the fact that it is in addition that is has this white and rare phenotype that turns it into something more in the realm of myth, something fearful and God-like. Something like a unicorn for example, the violent terry pratchett ones that are known for goring people that is.

If this was just a regular, unstabbed, unfrightful white whale I think the response would be something more like, “Cool! a white whale… Let’s kill it!” The idea which we discussed in class about perceptions is accurate I believe, as many of the mythological and spiritual connections solely being channeled from the crew itself. Albinoism has been a recessive trait present in nature for an incredibly long time. It is only when it is connected to the ferocity seen in moby dick and things like white sharks that it becomes such a metaphor for transcendent ideas.

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