Moby Dick

Moby Dick is truly the main character of the book as the title shows. Although he is only in three chapters out of the whole, he takes on a big role to the crewmembers, especially Ahab. Firstly he becomes the focus of the whole whaling trip of the Peaquod. Moby Dick is not an ordinary whale. He has many features that set him apart. With his physical size and stature he towers over the sea, controlling everybody with fear. Other than the obvious physical obscurities, there are many symbols hidden in Melville’s whale. He has religious meaning, along with a national meaning, and an environmental meaning.
Moby Dick is white. His color alone connects him to many things including religion. In Christianity white means pureness. Ishmael goes through a whole shpeel in chapter 42 literally named, the whiteness of the whale where he describes the many things that the color white means and what it is used for including how “it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull…to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord” (Melville 354-355)....

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...he environment. Back then whaling had to be evenmessier and was not good for the water to leave parts behind, or take away an animal from it’s natural habitat for human use. uNowadays there are ideas of global warming that take o the same concept. People get mad because society as a whole does not take care of the environment. There are laws about littering and many activists groups that try to persuade society on how to live their life. In the end of this book nature won, but in the end of the world who will come out on top?
Melville uses Moby Dick to challenge views on different opinions about Good vs Evil, Determination vs being content, Nature vs Humans. Moby Dick plays on both sides of each opinion and floats back and forth with his actions that make the audience use their own opinion as to which is true. There is endless symols held by the giant white whale.