Having gotten to know Ahab thus far as the irreligious, vengeance-driven captain of the Pequod, it is interesting how quickly God comes up when Ahab\u2019s pious first mate, Starbuck, directly questions the captain\u2019s actions.\u00a0 When an oil leak forms on the ship, a problem normally corrected by \u201cupping the Burtons,\u201d Ahab indifferently refuses to follow the regulatory procedures.\u00a0 He says the only important goal of the trip is the capture of Moby Dick, and that the oil means nothing to him regardless of the owners\u2019 expectations.<\/p>\n
Ahab is infuriated with Starbuck\u2019s dissension: \u201c\u2018Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me? \u2013 On deck!\u2019\u201d And later, \u201c\u2018There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod\u2019\u201d (494).<\/p>\n
Ahab does not often mention Devils or God in any context.\u00a0 Of course, in this situation, he uses religious rhetoric to paint himself as God, verbally smiting Starbuck for even thinking critically of his methods.\u00a0 Not exactly a revelation of Ahab\u2019s oft-hidden piety.\u00a0 But what does this say about Ahab\u2019s perception of God?\u00a0 If he is serious about his belief that the almighty is not to be questioned, he is treading on thin ice in his quest to kill Moby Dick.\u00a0 We have seen throughout the text ways in which God could be represented in the traditional sense, by the whale Moby Dick itself, or by the vast power and mysteriousness of nature and the ocean.\u00a0 In any of these cases, Ahab is doing much more than just \u201cthinking critically\u201d about or against God\u2019s will with his journey.\u00a0 He is directly challenging the almighty.<\/p>\n
Interestingly enough, Ahab eventually relents to Starbuck\u2019s courageous request and orders the upping of the Burtons.\u00a0 Ishmael wonders if it may have been a \u201cflash of honesty\u201d that caused Ahab\u2019s uncharacteristically rational action.\u00a0 Does this passage show a sense of deference to a higher being by Ahab?\u00a0 A shred of a conscience, or honesty, or morality?\u00a0 Does Ahab reference God to appeal to Starbuck, or is his mind often consumed by religion?\u00a0 It appears as if all these questions, along with the resolution to a growing rivalry between Starbuck and Ahab, will be further hashed out as the novel continues.<\/p>\n
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1991.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Having gotten to know Ahab thus far as the irreligious, vengeance-driven captain of the Pequod, it is interesting how quickly God comes up when Ahab\u2019s pious first mate, Starbuck, directly questions the captain\u2019s actions.\u00a0 When an oil leak forms on the ship, a problem normally corrected by \u201cupping the Burtons,\u201d Ahab indifferently refuses to follow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698","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=698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":700,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions\/700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}