As the book opens, we are reminded that whenever people want to be philosophical, they are drawn to large bodies of water. 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). 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). Ahab proposes to strike back at all that is wrong everywhere by striking “through the mask.” In contrast, the good Christian Starbuck sees the white whale only as a natural animal, without malice or supernatural power.

Moby Dick was written in an era in which books commonly exhorted people to conventional morality. Protestantism, with “family values”, a work ethic, and heaven for the faithful, was the dominant religion in the US.

The philosophical ramblings in Moby Dick cover a huge range of perspectives. Collegians focused on minority group grievances will find both old ideas about the superiority of the white race bringing learning and technology to the rest of the world, and descriptions of physically and spiritually superior people of color. Melville is obviously thrilled by the dangerous adventure of killing whales. But people who are troubled by the cruelty of whaling, then and now, and who are concerned about the humane treatment of animals, will be surprised by Melville’s horror of slaughterhouses and meat-eating. People who have different attitudes about orthodox Christianity will see Starbuck as a self-sacrificing saint or a superstitious fool.

The theme of different points of view pervades the novel. Nine gams each provide a different view of Moby Dick. The whale has its eyes on opposite sides of its head, so it sees two entirely different views of the universe at the same time (“contrasted view” — ch. 74). Father Mapple tells the faithful that “if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves” — we must learn to see things in other ways.

Some of your literature instructors may be postmodernists, who say that all perspectives are equally valid, and that truth is whatever your grievance-group says it is. We hear nowadays that people cannot really understand each other across racial, gender, or cultural lines.

For Melville, humanity’s hope is that we CAN come to understand and love each other in the midst of conflicting points of view.

Ahab was obsessive about killing Moby Dick, the whale which has taken his leg and killed many of his previous crew.

Moby Dick was imbued by Melville with almost human emotions, in that he hated whalers and whaling ships.

Although the story is fiction, there were true incidents where whales attacked and sank whaleboats and killed the crews. There were also superstitions among some south seas races that whales were guarded by huge white whales that protected them from harm. Melville wove all these elements into a tale of obsession. If Moby Dick had apoint of view, he would have felt anger at Ahab, and a desire to be rid of him forever.

Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me? Could it be because I’m a creature of the sea? People have so much yet to learn–and if they continue to deplete the seas, it is they who the sorrier for it will be! Man and whale should live in harmony!

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Hey, what’s that up on the surface? Something floating, something big. Hey, ow! Ow! Jesus, that hurts. What the hell did I do to deserve that? Damn it, I’m not hurting anybody, what’s with the harpoons? Ow! Okay, that’s it. I’m fighting back… Ooh, look, a leg I can bite!

The novel is from the first person point of of view of Ismael, a crew member on the ship.

These type of questions cannot be just stated you really have to read the book and look closely at his actions and the adverbs and adjectives they use to describe him

About what? He was a whale, hunted!