Research Paper on:
Moby Dick by Herman Melville and Ahab's Character

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
different perspectives. Many, for example, argue that he is symbolic of good, symbolic of the righteousness of God. Others, however, argue that he is a man who has no respect  for God, creation, or nature. In all honesty, this particular writer would have to argue that Ahab was a man that was driven to kill a whale because of his  disregard for nature and God. He actively challenges these realities for many possible reasons. He perhaps challenges nature because it is more powerful than he is. He challenges a creation  of God because it was powerful enough to destroy a part of his body and he wishes to prove himself a God by dealing out retribution. In the following paper  we examine the character of Ahab, arguing that is a man who challenges the very order of creation and nature in his obsessive pursuit of Moby Dick. Ahab We  note the obsessive and perhaps self-righteous nature of Ahab, as well as his familiarity with evil, when he examines a dead whale: "Ahab, talking to the silent sphynx head of  the killed whale, reflects that animal has seen all that is wrong, and must know the dark secrets of the world (ch. 70)" (Friedlander mobydick.htm). And, his persistence in seeing  the whales as evil, or the one particular whale as evil, has infiltrated the beliefs of the men on board as well: "The whalemen believe that Moby Dick can be  in several places at once, or has supernatural means of travel deep beneath the ocean (ch. 41). Exhorting the crew to kill the white whale, Ahab calls him the pasteboard  mask worn by the supreme inscrutable evil (ch. 36)" (Friedlander mobydick.htm). In these respects we see how Ahab is a man who insists on possessing power. He wants to possess