Moby Dick

Anyone who has had minimal exposure to greek literature in their lifetime will be familiar with the term “Hubris”.  It is most typically referring to those Greek tragedies in which the main character, likable or not, is brought down by his own haughtiness, oftentimes by the gods themselves.  The most memorable characters involved in these sorts of stories would of course be Odysseus, Oedipus and Icarus, but many others were brought down alongside these men.  Greek historian Herodotus summarizes the idea of hubris in the following passage:

Seest thou how God with his lightning smites always the bigger animals, and will not suffer them to wax insolent, while those of a lesser bulk chafe him not? How likewise his bolts fall ever on the highest houses and the tallest trees? So plainly does He love to bring down everything that exalts itself. Thus ofttimes a mighty host is discomfited by a few men, when God in his jealousy sends fear or storm from heaven, and they perish in a way unworthy of them. For God allows no one to have high thoughts but Himself. (Wikipedia)

Now, anyone who has gotten up through chapter 36 in Moby Dick must surely see the parallels this statement has with our favorite captain, and as the novel progresses, Ahab only digs himself in deeper and deeper:  “Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me…. Who’s over me?” (Melville 178).  This does not bode well for the ship, as Starbuck realizes: “God keep me!-keep us all!” (179).  Although perhaps Melville did not write his story after the model of the greek tragedy, that doesn’t mean that he won’t rely on a similar storyline; for what story of hubris would be more relevant to Melville than that of Jonah?  As the bible states, “But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah” (Biblegateway Jonah 1:17).  So, there is a biblical predecessor to Moby Dick involving both a whale and a man that defies God… it seems that Starbuck was quite founded in his fears. 

Ahab’s hubris is brought on and enhanced by the  impenetrable greatness that Moby Dick possesses as a figure.  In his first unfortunate encounter with the whale, the discrepancy in the power of these two characters could not be more obvious:

His three boats stove around him, and the oars and men both whirling in the eddies; [Ahab], seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale… blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale…. And then it was… Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab’s leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. (Melville 199)

Ahab attacks the whale with a pitiful 6-inch knife, crazily hoping to reach the beast’s “fathom-deep life”, and Moby Dick cleaves his leg “as a mover a blade of grass”-and all this after Ahab has experienced the disgraceful destruction of his fleet.  As a result of his loss to the whale, Ahab finds himself mentally altered:

[Ahab] at last came to identify with [Moby Dick], not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations…. All the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visible personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. (Melville 200)

And so manifests the “mask” that Ahab refers to (178), and the aporia we referred to in class; Ahab feels that he is kept from some greater truth due to the continued existence of this whale, and by finding this blockage “assailable,” he will most likely stop at nothing to rid himself of this elusive foe.

Although one might prefer to think that in his crazed delirium, perhaps Ahab could never lead his ship to this whale, there is further evidence of their intertwined rivalry in Ahab’s leg-for rather than wood or any other substance that he could have used to replace his missing limb, Ahab chooses whale ivory, intertwining in his very physical being the manifestation for what is to come. 

Works Cited:

“Hubris.” Wikipedia. Wed. 2 Feb. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris>

“Jonah 1.” BibleGateway. Web. 2 Feb. 2010. <http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah%201&version=NIV>

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Northwestern University Press, 1988. Reissued 2003. Print.

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