Melville puts Ahab in an interesting situation. \u00a0He portrays the story with elements of an epic poem and casts Ahab as the hero. \u00a0Homer and Ahab may both be plagued by hubris, but in the Odyssey for instance, Homer mainly wants to get home. \u00a0Ahab, on the other hand, is completely obsessed with a dangerous errand – the destruction of his arch-rival Moby Dick. \u00a0Melville foreshadows many times the dangers inherent in such a goal and with each day of the chase, the reader discovers more and more the futility of Ahab’s actions. \u00a0The white whale toys with the Pequod’s crew while Ahab rallies support, effectively condemns his shipmates, and attacks with incredible fervor and \u201cbravery.\u201d<\/p>\n
But is Ahab actually brave? \u00a0Bravery definitely involves an element of foolhardiness, which Ahab has, but it should also involve agency. \u00a0No one is denying Ahab’s intelligence and command but his obsession leads me to believe his actions are out of his control, at least on a subconscious level. \u00a0Ahab admits he’s \u201cfates lieutenant\u201d and uses the word \u201cbrave\u201d to inspire his shipmates in the following passage. \u00a0He probably felt brave himself as well at the time, but I wonder if his emotion may have been misguided:<\/p>\n
\u201cI \u00a0am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act under orders. \u00a0Look thou, underling! \u00a0That thou obeyest mine. – Stand round me, men… So with Moby Dick \u2013 two days he’s floated \u2013 to-morrow will be the third. \u00a0Aye, men, he’ll rise once more, – but only to spout his last! \u00a0D’ye feel brave men, brave?\u201d (497)<\/p>\n
He has nothing to lose by fighting Moby Dick even with the presence of all these bad omens and ominous signs. \u00a0Anything less than his actions, which were essentially suicide, would have appeared downright cowardly! \u00a0Melville could be conveying a message about illusory bravery. \u00a0Possibly that our typical heroes may be less brave than they seem. \u00a0Ishmael, the only crew member who survives, is not exactly the most brave or macho of the group. \u00a0I doubt this particular interpretation however because it’s not Ahab’s fault \u2013 he never received the chance to be truly brave because he never really had something to lose. \u00a0In reality, this is just a sad story. \u00a0An obsessed man with too much power went too far and realized A LOT of collateral damage. \u00a0Shame.<\/p>\n
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Melville puts Ahab in an interesting situation. \u00a0He portrays the story with elements of an epic poem and casts Ahab as the hero. \u00a0Homer and Ahab may both be plagued by hubris, but in the Odyssey for instance, Homer mainly wants to get home. \u00a0Ahab, on the other hand, is completely obsessed with a dangerous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,87],"tags":[163,317,316],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character","category-sources-or-literary-allusions","tag-ahab","tag-bravery","tag-futility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","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=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1177,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions\/1177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}