Moby Dick -- Ahab's Whale Term Paper

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And like a human being "owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere" (Chapter 85). And who knows, the whale may even be superior to us, as "this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber" (Chapter 68).

By treating Moby Dick as if the whale were an intelligent creature, Ahab overcomes the threat or fear of nothingness that all characters in the novel, indeed all human beings must grapple with. Ahab knows that his quest to break through the wall is futile, yet he engages in it anyway, to gain a fleeting sense of purpose.

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Although the whale is more physically powerful than a man, a warm-blooded beast that can life more effortlessly than even accomplished seamen in the water, Ahab will try to overcome it anyway, because it is warm-blooded and therefore like a man. Overcome nothingness, Ahab advises, however briefly, by acting with vengeance as if the world had meaning.

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