HERMAN MELVILLE

Ahab, were visibly personified and made practically assailable
in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the
sum of all 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."

No wonder that Ahab carries his desire for vengeance to
lengths which for his creed meant blasphemy. He vows to
know the cause of his misfortune and to pay back blow for
blow. He is in absolute rebellion against whatever god or
godless chaos has wrought this havoc upon him, against what-
ever it is that Moby Dick represents, against whatever is out-
side the wall within which mankind is hemmed. "How can
the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the
wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me.
Sometimes I think there's naught behind. But 'tis enough.
He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength,
with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing
is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be
the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him*
Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it
insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the
other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealously
presiding over all creations/' "The prophecy was that I
should be dismembered; and—ay! I lost this leg. I now
prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then,
be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye,
great gods, ever were."

Thus Ahab, lifted by his fury to a sense of equality with
the gods, goes on his long hunt. Like Jonah, stifling in the
belly of the whale, the prisoner of the universe fumbles for
the whale's proud heart, to destroy it. Nor is Ahab alone. He
commands a little world, men of all races and colors, and
ruthlessly employs them to weight his blow. Gradually, as
he withdraws from the land where they were free creatures,
he infects them with his horrid will, until they are one fist

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