This paper discusses the role of various characters in Herman Melville’s `Moby Dick`.
The paper states that `Moby Dick` tells a story of obsession, with the object of Ahab’s obsession being Moby Dick, the White Whale who cut of Ahab’s leg. The paper discusses that the central character in the story is Ishmael who is curious about the White Whale. The author believes that Pequod is symbolic of human life adrift on the dangerous sea, and the White Whale is the unnatural symbol of death that seeks out the ship and destroys it.
`The different members of the crew each have their own personal journey where the physical and the spiritual meet, and this multiplicity of reasons reflects the dominant idea that each action in this world can have many causes and many consequences. For Ishmael, the telling of the story is announced in the first line, `Call me Ishmael` (29). For Ahab, the entire journey is directed to one goal–to find Moby Dick. Stubb tells him that as long as they are making this trip, they should capture other whales and fill the casks as they would do on a `normal` voyage. Ishmael is also on a spiritual journey: he is perhaps the most aware individual on the ship. His specific purpose in going to sea is to learn about life and to achieve a closer connection with the natural world and the world of man both, though at first he speaks as if his journey is only a way to break the routine:`