of harpooning whales, and they are the first people to confront the whale. However, they do not receive credit for what they do. For example, Tashtego is the harpooner who slays the first whale killed in the book, but Stubb, the white second mate on thePequod, is credited with killing the whale. The other mates on the ship, Starbuck, Flask, and the captain, Ahab, are also white. They pursue the glory of killing whales and receive credit for it, while the harpooners, people of color, do the most dangerous work.

The whiteness of the whale is also significant, as the whale itself signifies what everyone desires. The fact that what everyone wants is white can be understood as an implicit valuation of the color white. In turn, this means that whiteness, and, by extension, white people eclipse the people of color around them. All anyone can see is whiteness—darkness and people of color are invisible. 

Herman Melville dedicated his novel, Moby Dick, to Nathaniel Hawthorne and wrote him, "I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb."  While there are several major themes in Melville's great work, perhaps the central theme is that of the individual in conflict with nature which brings into play Religion and God's role in the naturalworld.

Melville marked repeatedly verses from the book of Job, such as the verse in the fourteenth chapter when Job asks his despairing question about a future life, "But man dieth and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, but where is he?"  Certainly, the implications here of the white whale as a metaphor for the forces of nature and fate are apparent. 

In the beginning of the novel, Father Mapple gives a sermon that reflects the contemporary religious attitudes of the early nineteenth century Protestantism.  On the voyage, Starbuck reflects these attitudes as well and conflicts with Ahab who vows to fight the "inscrutable malice" of the whale and break through the "pasteboard mask" of all visible objects.  That is, Ahab defies conventional attitudes and fights against the Calvinistic sense of fate and "Innate Depravity."  Ahab refuses to resign himself to the predestination of divine providence. Melville, like his contemporary, Nathaniel Hawthorne, felt very much the "Puritanical gloom" of his times, and as a Anti-Romantic, he also felt the dark forces of nature, forces that lie at the bottom of the sea while the good, perhaps, is on the shore and in the sky. 

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 Ahab and the crew over the ship's mission.  For example, Chapter 54, "The Town Ho's Story," a sailor from another ship tells a story about a group of sailors rebelling, or conducting a mutiny, against their captain.  Furthermore, much later, in Chapter 123, "The Musket," his first mate Starbuck picks up a musket in Ahab's cabin while the captain is sleeping and thinks,

I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans an a whole continent between me and law. --Aye, aye, 'tis so.--Is heaven a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin together?--And would I be a murderer, then, if"--and slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket's end against the door.

From this interior monologue, the reader can tell that Starbuck is contemplating killing Ahab and, thus, overthrowing his authority.  Because they are so far out at sea, he imagines that he could get away with it, but ultimately he does not kill Ahab or begin a mutiny.  One of the main ambiguities of the novel is the status of mutiny; it is never really clear why the crew does not overthrow their rather tyrannical captain.

The basic narrative outline of Moby Dick is really very simple. The story consists of an expedition led by a deranged whaling captain called Ahab, who's determined to exact revenge on a great white whale called Moby Dick, who bit off Ahab's leg on a previous voyage. Ahab becomes so obsessed with avenging himself on Moby Dick that absolutely nothing else matters to him, certainly not the good of the crew of his ship, the Pequod.

If this were all there was to the book, then although we'd still have a cracking adventure story, that's pretty much all we'd have. The book isn't just about the voyage; it's about what the voyage says about man and his often fraught relation to nature. Ever since the modern age began, humankind has increasingly objectified nature, seeing it as something to be conquered, controlled, and subjugated. And this attitude is aptly personified by Captain Ahab, one of the most unforgettable characters in English literature.

Ahab is so arrogant, so steadfast in his belief that nature, in the shape of the great white whale, must yield to his unbending will that he is prepared to put his own life at risk, as well as the lives of his crew, in pursuit of crazy revenge against a mere animal. Ahab thinks he can conquer nature, but in this assumption, as in so much else, he is profoundly mistaken. For it is nature, as represented by Moby Dick, that finally gains the upper hand, as Ahab is drowned beneath the waves.

The reason why so many consider Herman Melville's Moby Dick to be one of the greatest American novels of all time is the reason that it can actually be interpreted in many ways, which is mainly due to the fact that it has multiple themes. For example, it describes the relationship between nature and humans, the meaning of religion, the question of fate and destiny, the pursuit of knowledge, and many more significant themes. However, one of the main themes of the novel is actually the complexity of human nature and human emotion.

The main reason why the the main plot happens is because of Ahab’s hatred for the white whale and his obsession to find it. The captain lost his leg when he and his crew went whale hunting, and he unsuccessfully tried to attack Moby Dick with a knife; thus, he swore revenge against the whale. His obsessive need to find the creature and kill it, or to "dismember his dismemberer," becomes his life mission, and that thirst for revenge drives both him and the action forward.

Captain Ahab is so blinded by revenge that he basically becomes the personification of that emotion and lets it consume him completely; every decision and choice that he makes is influenced by his obsessive need to find the beast and punish it for what it did to him. All other emotions basically become secondary.

Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness, he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperation.

In the end, Ahab actually realizes how his hatred has blinded him, but it is unfortunately too late, and he pays the price; his need for vengeance and obsession kill both him and his crew.

What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab?

In contrast, Captain Boomer is someone who lost an arm, but instead of filling his life with hatred and negativity, he focuses on positivity and is thankful that he survived the encounter with Moby Dick and got to live another day.

Melville's idea, therefore, is to showcase the depth of human nature and the mysterious ways in which the human mind operates—to describe how people let their emotions or feelings get the better of them, both consciously and unconsciously.

Sometimes, we are willing to spend a lifetime pursuing something that we think will bring us peace or satisfaction, even if we know that such pursuit might be irrational or even futile. Sometimes we let those emotions become us, not realizing how that might affect us or those around us, and we let it push us to the brink of madness, like Captain Ahab did. Sometimes, however, we learn how to cope, and we use our experiences as a source of knowledge—something that can helps us overcome life's challenges more easily and makes us aware of life's beauty and meaning, which is essentially what Captain Boomer did. In each scenario, we define ourselves and our nature and prove our complexity as human beings.

As a classic, Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" can be read on different levels.  On one level, it is a narrative about whaling and whales and one obsessed sea captain who seeks revenge again a levithian called Moby Dick who cost him his leg in a previous encounter.  This narrative is set in Nantucket, Massachusetts, a site renowned for its craggy seamen and fearless whalers, and is narrated by a young man who signed on the the enigmatic Ahab's ship in order to be gone "for a year or two."

But, since the narrative of the chase for Moby Dick does not occupy more than a fourth of the novel, Melville's work entails much more than the story of a maniac sea captain.  It is, rather, a metaphysical examination of the essence of nature.  For, as Captain Ahab declares early in the novel, what man sees of nature is but an inscrutable "pasteboard mask."  And, Ahab tells his crew that he would break through this mask in order to understand the meaning of existence behind it.  As what is termed a Dark Romantic, Melville and others like him perceived nature as a force that often works against man.  Moby Dick is the "pasteboard mask" that conceals the malevolent force against man, particularly Ahab who desires a rencounter with the "levithian" so that he may "break through that mask."  For, Ahab believes that if he can capture the great white whale, he can conquer the malevolent force against him.

Having remarked that the sea was his school, Melville's novel encompasses several themes, but the overriding one is man's search for meaning in his existence against the dark forces of nature, with the voyage of the Pequod being a metaphor for life.  In Chapter 58, Melville writes,

As the appalling surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life.  God keep thee!  Push not off from that isle, for thou canst never return.

Once someone has encountered evil--has left the Eden-like isle of innocence and has learned of life--he can never go back to his naivete, but must seek answers as Captain Ahab has felt compelled to do, risking his very life. himself.

Moby Dick is considered to be Herman Melville's masterpiece.  It was largely influenced by the fact that Melville, himself, worked on a whaling ship for awhile.  Moby Dick takes place in the early 1800s--probably around the 1830s or 1840s.  The majority of the novel takes place on the ship, the Pequod.  Ishmael, the novel's narrator, goes to Nantucket in order to board the ship.  Nantucket was considered to be the whaling capital during that time period.  From there, the Pequod starts its voyage to the southern tip of Africa.  Its goal is the same as the ship's captain's (Ahab): to find and kill Moby Dick, the great white whale that has become a legend during this time.  The problem is that Ahab becomes so focused on killing this legendary whale that he is unable to focus on anything else.  He goes to great lengths and risks the lives of his crew in order to find and kill Moby Dick.  Ahab's monomania is the chief conflict of the novel.

Conflict: Man v. Nature: Ahab's quest to kill the great white whale

Theme: I have attached a list of themes from enotes.com for you to look at.

The most appropriate answer is (e) all of these.

The critic Tony Tanner, in his introduction to the 1998 Oxford World's Classic edition of Melville's seminal work, contends that this novel could only have been written in mid-nineteenth century America, a "time of dominion and expansionary confidence in the western world."  For, Tanner continues, Melville generates both an epic and a myth in his work with the many chapters that objectively categorize whales and dissect the business of whaling also directing the reader symbolically to the mythical majesty of the largest creature of the sea.  Walking the decks of the whaling ship that seeks the inscrutable white whale, Moby Dick, is Captain Ahab, monomanical in his desire for revenge against the creature, who speaks in an elevated style suitable to the epic hero/anti-hero. In this elevated style, also, Ahab examines the metaphysical characteristics of the great whale, who is but "a pasteboard mask" that hides its inscrutable malice; this pasteboard mask Ahab swears he will break through:

That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the White Whale agent, or be the White Whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.

Ahab vows to find the truth, truth that has "no confines."  And, he sets out upon a voyage that ends in more than death.

The major theme of the novel that the symbol of the whale itself supports is the limits of human understanding. At the beginning of the novel the narrator tries to discuss the topic of whales and what they represent, but his task is made impossible by the multiplicity of meanings that whales have had through the centuries and also the way that man's knowledge of them is so limited, because they cannot see beneath the sea. In the same way, the novel as a whole points towards the vast realms of understanding and knowledge that humans are not aware of.

This is highlighted through the whale in the way that so many meanings are attached to it. For the sailors, the whale is a symbol of their fears and the danger they face as sailors. For Ahab, of course, the whale represents something completely different:

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

The fact that the whale becomes a kind of repository for the feelings, fears and neuroses of other characters suggests again the theme of the limits of human knowledge, as characters seem to push on to the whale their fears of the unknown.