Moby_Dick

Essay Score | x | For teacher’s use only | People do not have control over their obsession; it is the obesession in their mind that is controling their actions. Once held by it, people generally let the feeling lead them to a very emotional state which usually turns into a threat to themselves. Ahab, the captain of a whaling boat in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, is a man whose eyes are blinded by revenge and tries to seize the power to control the nature. Ahab seeks to kill Moby Dick no matter what the circumstances are. He sees Mobe Dick has an strong enemy and a more powerful being than he is. Ahab blames himself for not being powerful enough when the first time Moby Dick attacks the ship and letting it easily bite off his leg. He then transforms this feeling into grudges that is deeply embeded in his mind. He gives up the huge profit of whale oil in exchange for looking for the presence of Moby Dick. He travels to the area where whale hunting ships always go and the waters that people rarely sail through. He recruits sailers who are skillful at using harpoons like Queequeg in preperation for the war with Moby Dick. The terrified messages on how Moby Dick has hurt some people do not terrify Ahab at all. Contrarily, they raise the captain’s determination on killing the white whale to end the cruelty and to prove that Ahab is more capable than other captains like the one of the Rachel. The Pequod has encounterd the sperm whale a few times during its voyage, but it fails to hurt it, not to mention killing it. The repeated failure inevitably induces Ahab’s anger by a large amount. In the end, he become so monomanical that he ingnores the begging of the Rachel’s captain to help searching for the lost son. Throughout the voyage, Ahab is engaged in fighting against the nature and brutally swipes away any obstacles in his way. His power reaches the peak when he finally finds a chance to kill Moby Dick. However, that is the moment when the limit of his power is shown; he is tied by his own harpoon and dragged into the sea by his adversary. Meanwhile, the whale is only slightly hurt and is still able to destroy the Pequod. Ahab’s power struggle proves that there are things in the nature that human cannot control. Creatures are the things that Ahab wants to manipulate the most, but they are actually uncontrollable. Moby Dick is a symbol representing all the living things on earth. Human as part of the system is not prestige enough to control other creatures. Ahab can use his passion to call on the rest of the crew to search for Moby Dick, but he can only hope and pray that he will find it. He can run after the white whale for three days nonstop, but he cannot guarantee himself that he will catch it. His power struggle is nothing but his own internal movemens. He, as an individual living among other living things, is only able to control himself. He cannot force Starbuck to stop speaking against him; and he cannot rule over the whale. The more power he desires, the more weakness of human being is shown. Ahab has harpoons and a whole crew, but he is eventually tied up in his own harpoon and dragged overboard by the whale he devotes his whole life to kill. Ahab’s power-seizing journey on the sea is foreseeable and tragic. People always get too much involved in their emotions to see the whole picture of the issue. They let their emotions to lead them sometimes; and it often results in a tragedy.