Chapters 41-42
Posted on September 18, 2008
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Ishmael is starting to become more sympathetic to Ahab’s wild desires. He wants to know all of the history of this white humped whale that they all swore to hunt. Moby-Dick is known for his violent attacks and great intelligence. Whenever men hunted for him, there were awful injuries, and the whale seemed unstoppable. Rumors of Moby-Dick had spread that he could appear in two places at once and that he was immortal. He could be identified by his snow-white hump and wrinkled forehead.
“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.” Chapter 41
Ahab’s obsession is clearly insane. For a man to attribute all the evil in the world to the whale is just ridiculous. I too believe that Ahab realizes that his goal is mad. The thing is, he also believes that his methods for achieving this goal are sane. His need for vengeance has separated him from all society. He can still pretend to be normal, but deep down he will always have the insane drive for killing this whale.
It is the whiteness of Moby-Dick that terrifies Ishmael. He thinks that the color white increases to terror of anything. Ishmael explains that white symbolizes purity, the absence of anything. He says that nature covers everything up with bright colors, but white is the truth beneath it all. This deep analysis of the simple color white shows Ishmael’s description and obscurity. Only he would go on a tangent about the color white.
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