Moby Dick Pequod

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Throught the epic novel, Moby Dick, Herman Melville attempts to bring forth the pain and madness that one person can have. All of the men aboard the Pequod have heard of the legend of Moby Dick and some are afraid of it, but not Ahab. Ahab is filled with so much hatred for the White Whale. Ahab blames all the pain in his life on the White Whale. He believes that if he can kill the whale, he will not suffer anymore. Melville describes the hatred as “all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from adam down” telling of the limitless bounds of Ahab's hate. He has made Moby Dick the object of all his hate. Ahab believes that higher beings are against him, from that falsehood an aura surrounds Ahab that none of the other crewmen have. The aura and the pure rage he has, makes the men aboard the Pequod initially fear then come to join Ahab. In the start of the Pequod's journey the crewmen are terrified of Ahab, but by the end they are 30 men working as one coherent unit. …show more content…

Moby Dick is “all that most maddens and tourments,” even though Moby Dick was defending its self from Ahab. Melville wrote “all the subtle demonism of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable,” explaining of how Ahab has made the whale a symbol of everything bad or negative. Ahab fails to be able to rationalize what has happened to him. He does not realize that the loss of his leg is just part of the dangers of whaling. Instead of understanding that it was just a bad turn of events, Ahab “ piles upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race,” falsly making the whale a symbol of the pain and hate. Thinking those thoughts, creates his false belief that him killing the whale will bring him pease. In reality the whale was just defending

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