Moby Dick

Herman Melville does not specify what happens to Moby Dick after the whale destroys the Pequod and all the whaling boats, killing everyone but the narrator Ishmael. Captain Ahab is caught in a...

One of the main themes (especially when viewed through a modern critical lens) in Moby Dick is race and racism. The harpooners, Queequeg (from the South Seas), Tashtego (a Native American from...

At the end of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the White Whale (Moby Dick) rams into the Pequod, sinking her and killing all aboard, except Ishmael. Ahab also perishes when he gets tangled up in a...

The main conflict of the story is Captain Ahab's hunt for the whale Moby Dick. A conflict is what causes tension in a story, and Ahab's hunt causes this tension for himself and for the rest of the...

Captain Ahab seeks revenge against the white whale that he perceives as a supernatural creature of malice. At one point in his narrative, Ishmael describes Captain Ahab: "While his live leg made...

As with all literature, Moby Dick can be interpreted in many ways, but I would argue that its principal theme can be stated as some variation of "man's search for the impossible," or "man's search...

When Captain Ahab calls all of his mariners to come aft, they assemble, and he lays out the great undertaking upon which they are soon to embark. Most of the men are convinced of their duty by...

The "Dark Romanticism" in Moby Dick is also closely related to the love of the sublime that English and American writers from the late-1700s to the early-1800s relished (primarily the Gothic...

In his quest to understand the preternatural quality of Moby Dick, Ahab pursues the white whale through the seven seas, for he desires to break through "the pasteboard mask" of the visible object....

If by “events” you mean major plot points, one such event could be Ishmael’s shipping aboard the Pequod in chapter 16—Ishmael has made friends with Quequeg, the savage harpooneer, and Quequeg is...

Moby Dick has been interpreted in several ways as an allegory, a narrative in which the characters and events are symbolic or metaphoric for deeply meaningful abstract ideas or qualities; that is,...

The Romantic rebellion in the arts began under the primary influence of the French Revolution in Europe and caught fire in England with the poets Byron, Shelly, Keats, Coleridge, and Wordsworth as...

In Chapter 36 of Moby Dick, Captain Ahab calls the entire crew together on the quarter deck and makes the following announcement: "All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a...

The largest conflict is between Ahab (and, to some extent, his crew) and the whale Moby-Dick. While this is the central conflict that drives the novel, there is also a persistent conflict between...

A deeply metaphysical text, Herman Melville's Moby Dick is in Melville's words, "a wicked book." By that Melville seems to mean that he, like his Captain Ahab, has sought what lies behind the eyes...

One important, if practical, reason for Ishmael's survival is that it is through him that we know anything about Ahab and the hunt for Moby Dick at all—no Ishmael, no story. Ishmael functions as...

In my opinion, the climax occurs on the third day of battle with Moby Dick, when the whale rams the Pequod and sinks it. Ahab is caught in a harpoon line and dragged out of his boat to his death....

Ahab has no qualms about his words or decisions. As long as his pride is intact, his conscience is going to be guiltless. We can infer his character's loose conscious when we look at the religious...

In Moby Dick by Herman Melville, there are motifs, symbols and themes. The sea is a motif that runs throughout the story. A motif is defined as a recurring idea or image that is a single word or...

Ishmael is both the protagonist and narrator of the story. As evidenced by his own words, he is a man who craves adventure and welcomes testing his wits against any respectable adversary. He is...

The classic novel Moby-Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville, tells the story of the obsessive search by Captain Ahab for the white whale who took off half his leg. Early in the voyage aboard the...

Moby Dick is not actually a white whale. He just has a white head. This must mean that the rest of him is the same color as other whales. Captain Ahab gives a very explicit description of Moby Dick...

In his famous speech on the quarterdeck, Captain Ahab angrily responds to Starbuck's claim that it is sinful to take revenge on an animal, an animal that's incapable of willful cruelty. But Ahab...

The answer above is important and marks a pivotal point in the novel, as Ahab shares some of his "reasoning" behind wanting to kill Moby Dick. Ahab's idea that the whale is evil emerges after...

In chapter 36, “The Quarter Deck,” Ahab tries to convince Starbuck to share his quest for vengeance against Moby Dick. Starbuck is shown to be a model whaleman and a hard-headed practical thinker....

The central conflict in this novel is defined by the pursuit of the white whale, Moby Dick. Other conflicts are developed and resolved over the course of the book, but Ahab's pursuit of the whale...

The climax of Moby Dick is most certainly when Ahab finds the white whale and, after three days of "giving chase," plunges his harpoon into Moby's side only to get caught around the neck with the...

The rising action are the points in the plot and the description of characters that lead to suspense and to the climax. In Moby Dick, much of the book contains the rising action, starting with...

Ahab is unable to rationally consider his actions and their potential consequences. He is consumed by the need to have revenge upon the whale and pursues his quarry without regard to the safety of...

With one of the most famous sentences in all of literature, Herman Melville opens his narrative with "Call me Ishmael." With this line, Melville introduces the Biblical allusion of the son of...

The major story elements of this novel can be summarized as follows: Setting: The story takes place almost entirely at sea with the important characters all aboard the Pequod, Captain Ahab's ship....

An examination of the preternatural elements in Herman Mellville’s novel Moby Dick should begin with a basic understanding of the term preternatural. The word itself differs from the concept of...

This is a great question, because it's easy to do all three, even during the course of a single chapter. However, I actually primarily pity Ahab, because I see him as a tragic, nearly...

As mentioned in the previously posted quotation, Ahab seeks "that intangible malignity" that he believes is embodied in the White Whale. In a separate chapter (42), in fact, Melville considers the...

Bildad and Peleg are the two main owners of the ship. Readers are first informed about the Pequod's ownership in chapter sixteen. Ishmael is looking for a ship to join, and he comes across the...

The title of Melville's novel was inspired by a mercurial sperm whale that lived off the coast of Chile near an island called Mocha. This whale became well-known among mariners, for its aggressive...

Melville addresses many of the same themes and concepts in his novel as the transcendentalists. Ahab, for instance, like the transcendentalists, believes that nature is an outward manifestation of...

Starbuck represents a kind of rationality, and conventional Christian morality, in contrast to Ahab’s personal revenge-centered worldview. Starbuck is the one who is able to question Ahab’s quest...

I don't see Ishmael as either the protagonist or the antagonist in Moby Dick. Ishmael is the narrator, and as such he reminds me of Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. It is Captain Ahab whose...

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick concludes with a three-day chase for the legendary white whale. Led by the relentless Captain Ahab, who lost ships and his leg to the monstrous whale, the chase is a...

Ahab is set apart from all others by his personal experiences and singular focus on killing his adversary, the whale. In this light, Ahab is driven by demons that no one else can understand or...

You must be referring to the bizarre religious rite Ahab performs in "The Quarter Deck" chapter to consecrate his crew and ship in the quest to destroy Moby Dick. At one point, Ahab orders his...

In Melville's Moby Dick, to all Moby Dick is a formidable force, but Starbuck, the Quaker, feels that it wrong for Ahab to seek vengeance upon a dumb brute: "to be enraged with a dumb thing,...

On the first page of Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, the author uses allusion twice. The first line is "Call me Ishmael." This is an allusion to the Biblical story of Abraham and Sarah who want a...

Starbuck understands two things about Ahab's quest that lead him to protest. He sees that Ahab is bent on overthrowing the natural order (and defying God in the process) and he recognizes the...

It's a way of foreshadowing the outcome where Moby Dick rams the ship with his mighty forehead. The whale sinks the ship. Moby Dick is the alter ego of Ahab. (You could compare it to Hemingway's...

Herman Melville's dark classic "Moby Dick" reaches its climax after many long chapters on the anatomy of whale, the abnormal and evil connotations of white, and the strange introspections of the...

While this seems an almost insurmountable task for such a voluminous novel, you will need to only consider the most important parts of the plot which really come at the end of Melville's tome....

This is a very intriguing question! The passage you quote occurs near the very end of Chapter 32: But I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of...

Ahab had lost his leg to Moby Dick. In Chapter 41, Ismael relates the history of Ahab's encounter with Moby Dick. Moby Dick had been known to turn around on those who chased him; the great whale...