{"id":1040,"date":"2010-02-27T15:18:18","date_gmt":"2010-02-27T19:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=1040"},"modified":"2010-02-27T15:18:18","modified_gmt":"2010-02-27T19:18:18","slug":"%e2%80%9chow-the-richer-or-better-is-ahab-now%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=1040","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHow the richer or better is Ahab now?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026 I struck my first whale- a boy-harpooner of eighteen! Forty-forty-forty years ago! \u2013ago! Forty years of continual whaling! Forty years of privation, and peril, and stormtime! Forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore.\u201d (519)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This touching monologue by Ahab presents several questions. \u00a0Should \u201cwork\u201d just be a job or lifetime passion? And how much should one sacrifice for that passion and work?\u00a0 Is there a point when work devours the individual and leaves nothing behind? \u00a0Obviously Ahab is reflecting upon his life and asks himself if his time at sea has been worth all of the sacrifices or if it has been a waste. \u00a0He states, \u201c\u2026bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs\u2026\u201d (519) It is as though, until this point, he watched his life sail by without taking notice of all the things he forsook for the sea and now feels depressed about everything that could have been if he had been a little more aware. \u00a0He has given up hope, on life, on this voyage. \u00a0Virtually he sacrificed his youth, his family, his peaceful and his leg for the sea. \u00a0He begs to ask himself, \u201cHow the richer or better is Ahab now?\u201d (519) Now at the end of his days, was it all worth it?<\/p>\n

Perhaps part of the monologue is for the benefit of Starbuck, who is the only one witnessing Ahab\u2019s emotional break down. \u00a0Ahab must see Starbuck as a younger, less crazed, version of himself. \u00a0Starbuck has a wife and a child.\u00a0 Ahab is thus demonstrating what could possibly happen to Starbuck if he forsook his family for the sea. \u00a0It is a warning of a life lost, a life spent wandering the sea in search of meaning that very well could be found on land.<\/p>\n

But even though Ahab recognizes all the failures of his life (his virtually widowed wife and fatherless child), he is unwilling to give up on the search for the white whale. \u00a0Starbuck offers him the opportunity to head home, to see his family, to experience a peaceful life ashore. \u00a0If Ahab abandons the search for Moby Dick now, it possibly be seen as yet another failure in his life. \u00a0He must finish and accomplish this one goal.\u00a0 But I believe that Ahab acknowledges that the voyage and the whale may be his end.\u00a0 Thus is his passion for the sea, his passion for whaling, were they worth everything that he gave up? Or is part of Ahab’s madness due to the fact that his life is so singular, so focused on the hunt for whales?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026 I struck my first whale- a boy-harpooner of eighteen! Forty-forty-forty years ago! \u2013ago! Forty years of continual whaling! Forty years of privation, and peril, and stormtime! Forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labor-or-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040","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=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1044,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions\/1044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}