The avoidable tragedy of Captain Ahab’s
ships is foreshadowed throughout most of Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. After spending several months hunting down a supposedly antagonizing
Sperm whale the Pequod stumbles upon the White Whale at last: “the whale
was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing his high
sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into the air” (Melville,
595). This is merely the beginning of a three day conquest across frothing
waters. I believe this scene acts a subtle omen of the tragedy to come because
it involves an exciting chase that ends with everyone but Ishmael dying. Oddly
enough, a few lines down Ahab claims that he spotted the alabaster leviathan first
and therefore gets the golden doubloon: “Not the same instant; not the same—no the
doubloon is mine, Fate reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could
have raised the White Whale first” (Melville, 595). I believe that by
purloining Tashtego of what seems to be rightly his emulates a heavy sort of
tragedy because Ahab’s delusional obsession to find Moby-Dick has whittled away
the capacity for rationality and fairness. He no longer cares about the safety
of his worn-out sailors, and as result Fate veils him along with the crew in a blanket of infinite sleep. However, Ahab isn’t the first to have been deranged
enough to sacrifice innocent kinsmen.
In Euripides’ Medea a betrayed mother and wife seeks to destroy her husband and
the royal woman he wishes to wedlock. She soon devises a plan to burn the
princess of Corinth alive via poisoned clothing, but after doing so realizes
there is no place for her two boys in the country as refugees; she then decides to murder them: “They must
die and since they must I, who brought them into the world, will kill them”
(Euripides, 30). The disturbing passage reflects a character lost in her
eddying emotions, and as result has lost all sense of logical thinking. In the
end Medea butchers the children with a sword but not before she can escape
unnoticed by her husband Jason. The final dispute between them reveals just how
indifferent Medea has become, and in this way I believe Euripides and Melville
hit on a similar note. A person who loses himself or herself in rage turns into a mindless
machine capable of a tragedy that should have been prevented, and instead
creates a maniac chaos in which the innocent suffer ineffably.
Picture Source: http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=_MINCmOiJc22pM:&imgrefurl=http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/euripides/tp/051910EuripidesBacchaeStudyQuestions.htm&docid=kFzMIw7VLZN-OM&imgurl=http://0.tqn.com/d/ancienthistory/1/0/n/x/2/MedeaMurdersChild.jpg&w=380&h=598&ei=PUx3UPHLEuaIiAKJyIG4Dg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=428&sig=116158649283764553725&page=1&tbnh=121&tbnw=77&start=0&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:83&tx=23&ty=74
Works Cited: Euripides, and C. A. E. Medea. N.p.: n.p., 431 BC. Print.
That's a good parallel, Isaac, in that both characters are intensely driven by equally strong and destructive emotions.
ReplyDeleteI had never thought about comparing Herman Melville to Greek Mythology, but I think you picked a great myth to coincide with Captain Ahab. Medea consumed herself with revenge, just as Captain Ahab does. Both Medea and Ahab sacrifice the innocent around them in order to exact their revenge. I have read Medea in the past and I always found it ironic that Medea lived in the end; she actually achieves her revenge upon her husband, and rides off into the sunset. Ahab on the other hand fails his attempt at revenge, and loses his life along with his crew. Why do you think that Ahab also had to lose his life, instead of being a survivor?
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