Ahab\u2019s Depravity and Dissonance<\/p>\n
While reading the text, I couldn\u2019t help but feel a disconnect between Ahab\u2019s supposed darkness and Melville\u2019s rendering of him.\u00a0 In other words, the highly embellished, melodramatic descriptions of Ahab\u2019s monomania are not convincing.\u00a0 It is one of the few (perhaps inconspicuous) flaws of the novel and I\u2019m surprised that it hasn\u2019t been remarked on more often.\u00a0 I\u2019ll quote a few lines which, taken by themselves, do not flesh out the essence of the man and therefore leave the reader dissatisfied.<\/p>\n
\u2018Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul.\u2019 191 \u2013 Most of the writing on Ahab\u2019s monomania is crafted in this decontextualized manner, with the exception of the two page soliloquy in the last quarter of the novel.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2026in Ahab\u2019s case, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of its own.\u2019 195<\/p>\n
\u2018In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his fatal pride.\u2019 498<\/p>\n
Captivating descriptive prose without adequate character build up lends itself to the aforementioned dissonance. One wonders if this was intended by Melville. Is this truly a story about a depraved individual driven by monomania and overcompensation to a vengeful self-destruction? Or is it more a story of nature and community and philosophy? I\u2019m left confused about the centrality of Ahab the man and his standing vis-\u00e0-vis the other characters on the Pequod..<\/p>\n
Does anyone else sense the forced nature of his \u2018evil\u2019?<\/p>\n
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. <\/em>Signet Classic. 1998<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ahab\u2019s Depravity and Dissonance While reading the text, I couldn\u2019t help but feel a disconnect between Ahab\u2019s supposed darkness and Melville\u2019s rendering of him.\u00a0 In other words, the highly embellished, melodramatic descriptions of Ahab\u2019s monomania are not convincing.\u00a0 It is one of the few (perhaps inconspicuous) flaws of the novel and I\u2019m surprised that it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1011,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}