During the last few chapters of the book, it seems as if the
conquest of the whale, Moby Dick, is drawn out in such a long fashion. Ahab is
constantly consumed by killing Moby dick and once he realizes that he is going
to lose the fight to the whale, Moby Dick seems to go crazy. Throughout the end
it seems as is Moby Dick is controlling Ahab’s emotions and everything about
him. This reminded me of our earlier discussions of how the whale is seen as
almost a god to Ahab. It seems as if Moby Dick is acting as a higher power
towards Ahab, driving him even more insane. Ahab also seems to admit that his
journey and conquest was driven by his emotion and revenge, therefore admitting
his irrationality. In the end the prophecies appear to be fulfilled with Ahab
accepting his fate. Ahab was trying to stifle his emotion and revenge by
killing Moby Dick but the whale ended up taking his life from him. The end finally
made the book come together for me because that driving force of revenge and
vengence that was killing Ahab emotionally ended up physically killing him in
the end.
I agree with Emily in saying that the end was tied up nicely because of Ahab's death. If we think about Moby Dick being a God and sending warning messages to anyone attempting to kill him through his messenger Gabriel then Ahab had to die. He was so overcome with the need to kill Moby Dick that he would stop at nothing. Because of this, one of them had to die and it couldn't be Moby Dick who is god-like so it had to be Ahab.
ReplyDeleteReading both Emily's post and Elizabeth's comment, makes me wonder what our perspective of things would be if Moby Dick would have died and Ahab lived? If we remain focused on the biblical and religious aspects of the story, you could almost argue that Ahab was killed too soon. Adam and Eve were punished after eating the apple and showing true disobedience. Perhaps the story would have been more religiously accurate if Ahab had killed Moby Dick, displaying the ultimate form of revenge and vengeance, and then subsequently was punished for his act. It almost makes you wonder which ending would be more attractive to the reader? Killing Moby Dick would offer Melville a chance to momentarily expand on Ahab and perhaps display different emotions that we haven't seen in most of the cast mates. But doing so would deprive many people of the big swirling vortex of hell that almost everyone gets dragged into.
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