Moby Dick

I was struck by the similarity in thought that emerges between “Ahab’s Leg” of Moby Dick and a chapter entitled “Rebellion” in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

“Rebellion” is essentially concerned with how the unjust nature of life comes into conflict with the belief in a God that is good. How can one justify the goodness of God, no, how would God himself, justify the suffering of the innocent? What is just about about a world in which the murderer of a child may escape punishment and live his life with a clear consciousness? If God’s divine plan involves ruthless unpunished killings and the suffering of countless people then can we really say that god is good and just?

“Ahab’s Leg” discusses the grief and pain Ahab feels due to the loss of his leg. Although he is often reckless and careless with his leg, he “at times give careful heed to the condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood” (354).

The pleasures of life are not shared equally among men. Some may live their entire lives and face one moment of terror after another. Even a good deed may be met with evil. Melville writes:

“…Some natural enjoyments have no children born to them for the world, but, on the contrary, shall be followed by joy- childlessness of all hell’s despair; whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall still fertilely beget to themselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave; not at all to to hint of this, there still seems an inequality in the deeper analysis of the thing.” (355)

Ahab, who has been driven insane by his obsession for revenge seems to attribute his bloodlust not to himself but to the divine plan by God of some othe force, which he has no choice but to abide by. In “The Symphony”, Ahab, as he laments to Starbuck of his his inability to change course and avoid annihilation, states:

“…What cozening hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me…? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven…how then  can this one small heart bear; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that  living and not I?” (407)

There is something unjust and cruel for Ahab about his life- a life which he does not  believe he has chosen to live but  has already been determined for him. It just does not seem fair that he must live a life of sorrow according to the plan of being greater than himself, for a reason which he himself does not know.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Brothers Karamazov. New York: W W Norton, 1976. Print.

Melville, Herman, Hershel Parker, and Harrison Hayford. Moby-Dick. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.

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