Captain Ahab is a
fictional character
In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life perso ...
and one of the main
protagonists
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
in
Herman Melville
Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a rom ...
's ''
Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...
'' (1851). He is the
monomania
In 19th-century psychiatry, monomania (from Greek , one, and , meaning "madness" or "frenzy") was a form of partial insanity conceived as single psychological obsession in an otherwise sound mind.
Types
Monomania may refer to:
* De Clerambaul ...
cal captain of the whaling ship ''
Pequod Pequod or Pequot may refer to:
*The Pequod, or Pequot
The Pequot () are a Native American people of Connecticut. The modern Pequot are members of the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, four other state-recognized groups in Conne ...
''. On a previous voyage, the white whale
Moby Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...
bit off Ahab's leg, and he now wears a prosthetic leg made out of whalebone. The whaling voyage of the ''Pequod'' ends up as a hunt for revenge on the whale, as Ahab forces the crew members to support his fanatical mission. When Moby Dick is finally sighted, Ahab's hatred robs him of all caution, and the whale drags him to his death beneath the sea and sinks the ''Pequod''.
Melville biographer
Andrew Delbanco
Andrew H. Delbanco (born 1952) is the Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University and the president of thTeagle Foundation He is the author of many books, including ''The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Str ...
calls Ahab "a brilliant personification of the very essence of fanaticism". Scholar
F. O. Matthiessen
Francis Otto Matthiessen (February 19, 1902 – April 1, 1950) was an educator, scholar and literary critic influential in the fields of American literature and American studies. His best known work, ''American Renaissance: Art and Expression in ...
calls attention to the fact that Ahab is called an "ungodly god-like man". Ahab's "tragedy is that of an unregenerate will" whose "burning mind is barred out from the exuberance of love" and argues that he "remains damned". Writer
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...
felt little sympathy for Ahab and found that the whale should have "torn off both his legs, and a bit more besides".
The character of Ahab was created under the influence of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...
's lecture on ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' and figures in biblical and classical literature such as
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
and
Milton. His prosthesis, for instance, has been taken for an allusion to the
Oedipus myth.
Ahab is firmly established in popular culture by cartoons, comic books, films and plays. Most famously, he provided
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, (; 9 May 1860 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several succ ...
with the model for his
Captain Hook
Captain James Hook is a fictional character and the main antagonist of J. M. Barrie's 1904 play ''Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up'' and its various adaptations, in which he is Peter Pan's archenemy. The character is a pirate capta ...
character, who is obsessed with not a whale but a crocodile.
Biography
Ahab was named by his insane, widowed mother, who died when he was twelve months old. The etymology of the name Ahab derives from the Hebrew, meaning "father's brother" as cited i
Strong's Concordance no. 256 At 18 years old, Ahab first took to sea as a boy-
harpoon
A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument and tool used in fishing, whaling, sealing, and other marine hunting to catch and injure large fish or marine mammals such as seals and whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the target animal ...
er. Less than three voyages ago, Ahab married a sweet, resigned girl, with whom he has a young son. He has been in colleges and among the cannibals, and has seen deeper wonders than the waves. He has fixed his lance, the keenest and surest on the isle of
Nantucket, in stranger foes than whales.
Years ago, Peleg, now the co-owner of ''Pequod'', sailed as mate under Ahab. During that voyage, a
typhoon
A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...
near
Japan swung her three masts overboard. Every moment the crew thought the ship would sink, the sea breaking over the ship. Yet instead of thinking of death, Captain Ahab and Peleg thought of how to save all hands, and how to rig temporary masts in order to get into the nearest port and make repairs.
Before the ship sails from Nantucket, Ishmael encounters a man named Elijah who tells him about some of Ahab's past deeds. According to Elijah, Ahab once lay near death for three days and nights near
Cape Horn
Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...
, took part in a deadly battle against Spanish forces before an altar in Santa, and spat into its silver chalice. Ahab lost his leg during his most recent whaling voyage, leaving him with a grim disposition and a strong desire for revenge against Moby Dick.
In addition to the prosthetic leg, Ahab bears a mark that runs down one side of his face and neck: ''“Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it... leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded.”'' –(''Moby-Dick'', p. 129.) The mark and its origins – whether a birthmark, the scar from a wound, or otherwise – are rarely mentioned or discussed. Ahab's leg includes a small flat patch that he uses as a slate for making navigational calculations. The deck planks of ''Pequod'' have been bored with shallow holes, the same diameter as the lower end, to allow him to steady himself against the motion of the ship. While at sea, he turns to the ship's carpenter and blacksmith to fashion a replacement leg and fittings after damaging the one he wears.
Ahab is 58 years old at the time of ''Pequod''s last voyage. Peleg and Bildad pilot the ship out of the harbor, and Ahab first appears on deck when the ship is already at sea. Instead of embarking on a regular whaling voyage, Ahab declares he is out for revenge and nails a
doubloon
The doubloon (from Spanish ''doblón'', or "double", i.e. ''double escudo'') was a two-''escudo'' gold coin worth approximately $4 (four Spanish dollars) or 32 '' reales'',
and weighing 6.766 grams (0.218 troy ounce) of 22-karat gold (or 0.917 fi ...
to the mast, as a reward for the crewmember who first sights Moby Dick. As the voyage proceeds, Ahab gradually abandons the physical comforts of his life, symbolized by such actions as throwing his pipe overboard and giving his shaving razors to the ship's blacksmith for use in forging a special harpoon he intends to use against Moby Dick. When the whale is eventually sighted, a disastrous three-day chase begins. Ahab throws his harpoon and hits Moby Dick, but its line wraps around his neck and drags him off his boat when the whale dives, drowning him.
Peleg refers to Ahab respectfully as a "grand, ungodly, god-like man" but he is also nicknamed "Old Thunder".
Concept and creation
According to Melville biographer
Leon Howard, "Ahab is a Shakespearean tragic hero, created according to the Coleridgean formula." The creation of Ahab, who apparently does not derive from any captain Melville sailed under, was heavily influenced by the observation in
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...
's lecture on ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' that "one of Shakespeare's modes of creating characters is to conceive any one intellectual or moral faculty in ''morbid'' excess, and then to place himself ... thus ''mutilated'' or ''diseased'', under given circumstances." Whenever ''Moby-Dick''s narrator comments on Captain Ahab as an artistic creation, the language of Coleridge's lecture appears: "at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half-wilful ''over-ruling morbidness'' at the bottom of his nature." All men "tragically great," Ishmael says, "are made so through a certain ''morbidness.''" All mortal greatness "is but ''disease''."
Ahab's speech combines Quaker archaism with Shakespeare's idiom to serve as "a homegrown analogue to blank verse."
Ahab's death seems to be based on an actual event. On May 18, 1843, Melville was aboard ''The Star'' which sailed for
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
. Aboard were two sailors from the ship ''Nantucket'' who could have told him that they had seen their second mate "taken out of a whaleboat by a foul line and drowned, as is Captain Ahab of ''Moby-Dick''."
Ahab allegorically regarded
Ahab's character is shaped by mythic and literary patterns that overlap and reinforce each other in such a complementary way that "the apparent irony of one allusion is frequently the truth of another." For instance, allusions to Oedipus, which flesh out Ahab's ignorance and lack of self-knowledge, are complemented by references to
Narcissus, which evoke the psychological causes for his ignorance. Ahab's use of a spade for a crutch in Chapter 70, "The Sphinx," reminds the reader that he is lame, like Oedipus, and also wounded, like Prometheus. However, Ahab should be considered both in relation to the allusions and in contrast to the other characters.
King Ahab (Old Testament)
Ahab is named for the biblical story of
Ahab
Ahab (; akk, 𒀀𒄩𒀊𒁍 ''Aḫâbbu'' 'a-ḫa-ab-bu'' grc-koi, Ἀχαάβ ''Achaáb''; la, Achab) was the seventh king of Israel, the son and successor of King Omri and the husband of Jezebel of Sidon, according to the Hebrew Bib ...
in the
Books of Kings 16:28–22:40, the evil idol-worshipping ruler. This association prompts Ishmael to ask, after first hearing Ahab's name: "When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did they not lick his blood?" He is rebuked by one of Ahab's colleagues, who points out that "He did not name himself."
For Melville's allegory the single most important thing was that Ahab "did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him" in 16:30–31. The biblical Ahab foreshadows the tragic end of Captain Ahab and the essential duality of his character. Both Ahabs are shrewd in their secular associations. The captain is successful in whaling, with a record of forty years. "The very evidence of this success," Nathalia Wright observes, "is fantastically like that in King Ahab's story: Captain Ahab, too, lives in an ivory house, 'the ivory ''Pequod'' as it is often called, tricked out in trophies of whale bones and teeth from profitable voyages." The ship's last voyage, however, is not entirely commercial: from the moment Ahab attaches the golden doubloon on the mast, it becomes a pursuit of a perceived enemy, under a captain unable to compromise. King Ahab, an able politician but a patron of foreign gods, offended Jehovah by introducing Baal as a god. Jehovah tolerated no other gods and contrived with false prophets to destroy King Ahab.
Like his eponym, Captain Ahab worships pagan gods, particularly the spirit of fire. Fedallah the Parsee, his harpooner, is a fire-worshipping
Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ...
. Fedallah makes three prophecies regarding Ahab's death:
* That before he dies, he must see two
hearse
A hearse is a large vehicle, originally a horse carriage but later with the introduction of motor vehicles, a car, used to carry the body of a deceased person in a coffin at a funeral, wake, or memorial service. They range from deliberately a ...
s, one not made by human hands and one built from American wood
* That Fedallah will die before him and serve as his pilot into death
* That only hemp can kill him
Ahab interprets these prophecies to mean that he cannot die on land or sea, but they prove to be accurate if cryptic predictions of his death. Fedallah is swept off Ahab's whaleboat during the final three-day chase, and Ahab later sees his corpse bound to Moby Dick with a harpoon line. The whale proves to be the first of the two hearses; the ''Pequod'' becomes the second when it sinks with the loss of all hands aboard. The line around Ahab's neck serves as the fatal hemp, and Moby Dick's final dive allows Fedallah to lead Ahab to his death.
King Lear (Shakespeare)
Charles Olson
Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...
mentions three modes of madness in ''
King Lear
''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare.
It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane ...
'', the King's, the Fool's, and Edgar's, allegorized in the book, with Ahab taking the role of Lear and Pip the roles of both the Fool and Edgar. Melville makes his points by way of contrasts to Shakespeare. Olson identifies the typhoon in chapter 119, "The Candles," with the storm in ''Lear''. "Ahab, unlike Lear," Olson observes, "does not in this night of storm discover his love for his fellow wretches. On the contrary, this night Ahab uncovers his whole hate." Later, in chapter 125, "The Log and Line," Ahab says to Pip, in Lear's words to his Fool, "Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy; thou are tied to me by chords woven of my heart-strings." While Sweeney endorses Olson's identification, he finds exaggerated the claim that Ahab learns from his cabin-boy just as Lear does from the Fool. Ahab learns "little or nothing" throughout the book.
Satan (Milton)
Milton's Satan is "not the least element of which Captain Ahab is compounded," says Nathalia Wright. The words with which Ishmael and Starbuck portray him—infidel, impious, diabolic, blasphemous—describe him as a towering rebel.
In "The Candles" (Ch 119) Ahab's harpoon is called a "fiery dart." The phrase is taken from book XII of
John Milton's ''
Paradise Lost'', as Henry F. Pommer recognized, where Michael promised Adam "spiritual armour, able to resist/ Satan's assaults, and quench his ''fiery darts''"
XII, 491-2. Pommer argues that Milton's work was more immediate than Shakespeare, because while some of Melville's soliloquies appear to find their prototypes in Shakespeare, "there is a slight step from dramatic monologue to fictional thought," and Milton "had already taken that step, using, in his own extended narrative, soliloquies precisely like Melville's."
Further allusions identify Ahab with Satan. Milton's scene set in Hell includes the lines "Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit/Chew'd bitter ashes, which the offended taste/With spattering noise rejected"
X, 565–567, and'' Moby-Dick'' chapter 132, "The Symphony," has "like a blighted fruit-tree he
habshook, and cast his last, ''cindered'' apple to the soil." On the last day of the chase, Ahab evokes the Creation: ""What a lovely day again! were it a new-made world, and made for a summerhouse to the angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn upon that world." Later that day Moby Dick, "seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell from heaven," sinks the ship. Tashtego hammers a sky-hawk to the mast: "And so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upward, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven with her, and helmeted herself with it." Pommer finds "most impressive of all" the Latin in chapter 113, "The Forge," with which Ahab cries: "."("I baptize thee not in the name of the Father but in the name of the devil").
Ahab's scar may have been modeled on the description of Satan's face, which "Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd."
I, 600–601
The greatness and woe of both Satan and Ahab lies in pride. "The proud person," Pommer explains, "believing that he deserves treatment appropriate to his self-inflated dignity, is quick to anger when he receives a less welcome treatment. At the exaltation of the Messiah, Satan 'could not bear/Through pride that sight, and thought himself impair'd.'" Satan's "sense of injur'd merit" is reported in his first speech in Hell. Ahab's story, caused by Moby Dick biting off his leg, follows the same psychological pattern of being spiritually and physically impaired.
Prometheus (Aeschylus)
Overlapping with ''Lear'', the typhoon scene in "The Candles" also seems to be Melville's recreation of the mythic theft of fire.
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning " forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titan god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, kn ...
accomplished his theft by the stealthy hiding of the divine spark in a fennel stalk. In contrast, "Ahab's theft is a boldly defiant deed, set amidst elemental nature in furious eruption." The whole business of whaling is a theft of fire, for the sperm whale's oil is used as fuel for flames. The hunt for the White Whale, described by Ishmael as "the fiery hunt," thus represents a conflict with a deity—hence the references to Moby Dick as a god. Ahab waving the fiery harpoon is Melville's "modified equivalent of Prometheus's smuggling from heaven the fire-laden fennel stalk." Both Prometheus and Ahab try to alter or reverse "the supernatural design, and herein lies the acme of their tragic hubris." Prometheus, mistakenly convinced that
Zeus
Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek reli ...
planned the destruction of man, stole fire in order to contravene the will of the god; Ahab, thinking his mind can penetrate the mystery of evil, is convinced that killing Moby Dick will "expel evil from the cosmos."
In a tragedy a hero has a mad counterpart: ''Prometheus'' has
Io, ''Moby-Dick'' has Pip. The madness of Io and Pip is caused by their unintentional contact with the primal elements or with the deity. "The Pip who dances and shakes his
tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...
before Queequeg's coffin," Sweeney compares, "is clearly a maniac, completely detached from his former personality." Likewise, Io, tortured by the gadfly, "bursts upon the stage in a wild dance...While on the stage, Io speaks with a disjointed frenzy much the same as Pip's."
Oedipus (Sophocles)
In "The Candles," Ahab is temporarily stricken by blindness, an allusion to the
Oedipus myth. In the chapter "The Sphynx," Ahab stands before a sperm whale's head hanging from the side of his ship: "it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert." Ahab orders the head to "tell us the secret thing that is in thee." Here Ahab resembles Oedipus and the monster of Thebes, the more for his using a spade alternatively as both a crutch and as a tool with which to dissect the whale. Oedipus' staff, Sweeney notes, is both "a walking tool and the murder weapon with which he killed his father." The Promethean and Oedipean sides of Ahab connect in this chapter by way of the crutch. In addition to this, blindness is alluded to. Oedipus and Ahab are intelligent and ignorant at the same time, excessively proud, and both face a riddle (the mystery of evil).
Narcissus (Ovid)
The opening chapter contains an extended allusion to "that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned" (Ch. 1, "Loomings"). Ahab does not realize that the malice he sees in the White Whale is his own, "wildly projected." His Narcissistic self-delusion (he is unaware that he sees himself in the whale) complements "his Oedipean self-ignorance" (he does not know who he really is). The Narcissus myth also explains why Ahab, unlike Oedipus, remains self-ignorant. While two messengers enlight Oedipus and separate him from his obsession, Narcissus and Ahab are never interrupted from theirs. The contrast between Narcissus and Ahab is that the first contemplates a beautiful image which he loves, while Ahab projects an evil image which he hates, which Sweeney calls "an ironic reversal on Melville's part." In several ways Ahab and Moby Dick resemble each other:
* both are described with images of royalty, divinity, and archeology.
* both share physical features, they are scarred or wounded, and each has a prominent brow or forehead.
* both share the same internal characteristics: isolated, stubborn, vengeful, quickly enraged.
* Finally, both are "ultimately unknowable." According to Ishmael in "The Nut," all things that are mighty wear "a false brow to the common world." Ahab hates the mask as much as he does the thing itself.
Fedallah as Echo
A subtle connection between Ahab, Moby Dick and Fedallah is formed by the imagery of the brow and forehead. According to Sweeney, Fedallah is "clearly an external projection of Ahab's own depravity" and at the same time a double of what Ahab finds most evil in the whale. Fedallah is several times described using "phantom" imagery in the chapter "Ahab's Boat and Crew. Fedallah." In
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
's myth Narcissus has an airy counterpart in the speech-deprived nymph
Echo
In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...
, who can only repeat the sounds she hears. Echo is an auditory complement to the visual reflection and a foreshadowing of Narcissus' death. In the same way Fedallah, who only says what Ahab wants to hear, is an auditory reflection of Ahab's evil, of which Moby Dick is the visual reflection. Fedallah foreshadows Ahab's death.
Reception
Critical
When the book was first published, reviewers mostly focused on Ahab and the whale. According to George Ripley in ''Harper's New Monthly Magazine'' for December 1851, Ahab "becomes the victim of a deep, cunning monomania; believes himself predestined to take a bloody revenge on his fearful enemy; pursues him with fierce demoniac energy of purpose." Ripley admires the creation of Ahab, who "opens upon us with wonderful power. He exercises a wild, bewildering fascination by his dark and mysterious nature."
During the onset of Melville's rediscovery there was no change of emphasis on Ahab and his struggle with the whale. During the 1950s and 1960s literary scholars shifted their attention to narrative technique and point of view, which for Melville studies meant that the spotlight switched from Ahab to Ishmael.
In popular culture
Films, television and video
![Sea Beast film still 6](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Sea_Beast_film_still_6.jpg)
The first two film adaptations show "the radical surgery that Hollywood performed on Herman Melville's masterpiece." The first was a silent movie, ''
The Sea Beast'', a romantic love story in which the character of Ahab (
John Barrymore
John Barrymore (born John Sidney Blyth; February 14 or 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor on stage, screen and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly att ...
), is transformed into "a handsome young sailor" a New Bedford harpooner who has little in common with Ahab, not even his full name, which is extended to Ahab Ceeley. Though in the book Ahab has already lost his leg, in the film a "crude papier mache monster" bites it off. When the movie opened on Broadway it made $20,000 a week and ran longer than any Warner film up to that time.
Barrymore is also Ahab in the 1930 ''Moby Dick'', this time with his voice. Ahab is "shrieking in pain" as the ship's (called ''Mary-Ann'') blacksmith holds a fiery, hot-bladed tool against his stump. Again, the whale is just a means to separate lovers. In another diversion from the book, Ahab's sweetheart is the minister's daughter, Faith Mapple. Once again, it became a hit at the box office.
In 1955,
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
played Ahab in a filmed production of his play ''
Moby Dick Rehearsed''; however, this film is considered "lost".
Warner Brothers'
third effort was directed in 1956 by
John Huston, with a script by
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery fictio ...
, the first serious attempt to follow the book. Completion of the script took a year, filming another year, and editing and scoring a third year.
Gregory Peck's Ahab is a "stern authoritarian Lincoln in black." The otherwise positive reviews agreed that Peck was unsuited for the part.
There have been two French film versions of ''Moby Dick'': ''
Capitaine Achab
''Capitaine Achab'' (in English, ''Captain Ahab'') is a 2004 French short film directed by Philippe Ramos. It is an interpretation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel ''Moby-Dick''. The film follows a young Achab and the events that inspire his eventu ...
'' (2004), starring Frédéric Bonpart and ''Capitaine Achabin'' (2007) starring
Denis Lavant
Denis Lavant (born 17 June 1961) is a French actor. He is known for his distinctive face and the physically demanding aspects of the roles he plays, which often involve slapstick, acrobatics or dance, as well as for his long-standing association w ...
.
Ahab has been portrayed on television, beginning with
Victor Jory
Victor Jory (November 23, 1902 – February 12, 1982) was a Canadian-American actor of stage, film, and television. He initially played romantic leads, but later was mostly cast in villainous or sinister roles, such as Oberon in ''A Midsummer N ...
's portrayal in 1954 on the ''
Hallmark Hall of Fame'' and including portrayals by
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor who has a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games. He has been nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors ...
in the
1998 mini-series and
William Hurt
William McChord Hurt (March 20, 1950 – March 13, 2022) was an American actor. Known for his performances on stage and screen, he received various awards including an Academy Award, BAFTA Award and Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor.
H ...
in the
2011 mini-series. In films that were released directly to video, Captain Ahab was played by
Barry Bostwick
Barry Knapp Bostwick (born February 24, 1945) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Brad Majors in the musical comedy horror film ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show'' (1975) and Mayor Randall Winston in the sitcom ''Spin City'' (199 ...
in
a 2010 modern-age re-imagining of ''Moby Dick'', and by
Danny Glover in the 2011 film ''
Age of the Dragons
''Age of the Dragons'' is a 2011 fantasy film directed by Ryan Little and starring Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones. A fantasy-themed reimagining of Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel, ''Moby Dick'', it was released in the United Kingdom on March 4, ...
'', a fantasy-themed re-imagining.
Comic books
Ahab appears quite frequently in humorous comic strips and cartoons. Without effort an entire anthology of this material (caricature, gag cartoons, editorial cartoons) could be assembled. The one strip that most often refers to Melville is ''
Peanuts
''Peanuts'' is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. ''Peanuts'' is among the most popular and infl ...
'' by
Charles Schulz
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz (; November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) was an American cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip ''Peanuts'', featuring what are probably his two best-known characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He is wi ...
.
[Inge (1986), 716–7] The futuristic comic book supervillain Ahab uses harpoons.
An acclaimed version of ''Moby Dick'' and Ahab was made by the trio of
Argentine artists consisting of
Enrique Breccia
Enrique Breccia (born 1945) is an Argentine comic book artist and writer.
Biography
Enrique Breccia, the son of noted comic artist Alberto Breccia, drew his first work in 1968, when together with his father illustrated '' Vida del Che'' ("Life ...
, Leopoldo Durañona and Guillermo Saccomanno, which was released in a completed and collected
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
format in 1979.
Games
In ''
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain'', the story of
Venom Snake
Venom or zootoxin is a type of toxin produced by an animal that is actively delivered through a wound by means of a bite, sting, or similar action. The toxin is delivered through a specially evolved ''venom apparatus'', such as fangs or a sti ...
(initially introduced as Ahab) also appears to be somewhat inspired by the fate Captain Ahab. In addition, the transport helicopter regularly used by the player is referred to as Pequod.
In ''
This Is the Police'', the main character Jack Boyd is frequently compared to Ahab.
The first boss in the indie game ''Noitu Love 2'' – Mordecai Fluke – is based on Ahab.
Music
The song "Beneath These Waves" (in the 2005 album ''
Touched by the Crimson King
''Touched by the Crimson King'' is the second album by the power metal supergroup Demons and Wizards, released in June 2005. The album contains a cover of Led Zeppelin's " Immigrant Song." It was also released as a limited edition digipak in ...
'' of the metal band
Demons and Wizards) sings about Ahab's will of revenge.
The alternative metal band
Mastodon
A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...
and their album
''Leviathan'' references him in one of their songs, with the album being based on ''
Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...
''
German doom metal band
Ahab
Ahab (; akk, 𒀀𒄩𒀊𒁍 ''Aḫâbbu'' 'a-ḫa-ab-bu'' grc-koi, Ἀχαάβ ''Achaáb''; la, Achab) was the seventh king of Israel, the son and successor of King Omri and the husband of Jezebel of Sidon, according to the Hebrew Bib ...
is named after the character.
Singer
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
references the character in his 1965 song "
Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" from the album ''
Bringing It All Back Home
''Bringing It All Back Home'' (known as ''Subterranean Homesick Blues'' in some European countries; sometimes also spelled ''Bringin' It All Back Home'') is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released in Apri ...
''.
Singer
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during ...
also references the character in his song "Shiver Me Timbers" on his 1974 album ''The Heart of Saturday Night''.
Elton John and
Leon Russell’s 2010 album
''The Union'' contains a song called “Hey Ahab” based on the character.
Hip-hop duo
Black Star mentions the sinking of Ahab's ship by Moby Dick on the song "Re:Definition" from their 1998 album ''
Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star
''Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star'' (often called simply ''Black Star'') is the debut studio album by Black Star, a hip hop duo consisting of emcees Talib Kweli and Mos Def (the latter of whom now goes by Yasiin Bey). The album was released ...
''.
References
Sources
* Barbour, James. (1986). "Melville Biography: A Life and the Lives." ''A Companion to Melville Studies''. Ed. John Bryant. New York, Westport, London: Greenwood Press.
*
Delbanco, Andrew. (2005). ''Melville: His World and Work''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
* Heflin, Wilson. (2004). ''Herman Melville's Whaling Years''. Eds. Mary K. Bercaw Edwards and Thomas Farel Heffernan. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
* Howard, Leon. (1940). "Melville's Struggle with the Angel." ''Modern Language Quarterly'', June 1940. Reprinted in
Hershel Parker Hershel Parker is an American professor of English and literature, noted for his research into the works of Herman Melville. Parker is the H. Fletcher Brown Professor Emeritus at the University of Delaware. He is co-editor with Harrison Hayford of t ...
(ed.), ''The Recognition of Herman Melville. Selected Criticism since 1846''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1967, Paperback printing 1970.
* Inge, M. Thomas. (1986). "Melville in Popular Culture." ''A Companion to Melville Studies''. Ed. John Bryant. New York, Westport, Connecticut, London: Greenwood Press.
* Lawrence, D.H. (1923). ''Studies in Classic American Literature''. Reprinted London: Penguin Books.
* Lee, A. Robert (ed.). (2001). ''Herman Melville: Critical Assessments. Volume I''. The Banks, East Sussex: Helm Information.
* Mansfield, Luther S. and Howard P. Vincent. (1952). "Introduction" and "Explanatory Notes". Herman Melville, ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale''. Eds. Luther S. Mansfield and Howard P. Vincent. New York: Hendricks House.
*
Matthiessen, F.O. (1941). ''American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman''. Tenth Printing 1966, New York, London and Toronto: Oxford University Press.
* Milder, Robert. (1988). "Herman Melville." ''Columbia Literary History of the United States''. Gen. Ed. Emory Elliott. New York: Columbia University Press.
* Reprinted in Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (eds.), ''Critical Essays on Herman Melville's'' Moby-Dick. New York & Toronto: G.K. Hall & Co., and Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1992.
* Olson, Charles (1947). ''Call Me Ishmael''. Reprint: City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1958
Internet Archive* Pommer, Henry F. (1950). ''Milton and Melville''. University of Pittsburgh Press.
* .
* Stone, Edward. (1975). "Ahab Gets Girl, or Herman Melville Goes to the Movies." Reprinted: ''The Critical Response to Herman Melville's'' Moby-Dick. Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1994.
* Sweeney, Gerard M. (1975). ''Melville's Use of Classical Mythology''. Amsterdam: Rodopi N.V.
*
Tanselle, G. Thomas. (1988). "Historical Note Section VI". Herman Melville, ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale''. The Writings of Herman Melville Volume Six. Eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, G. Thomas Tanselle. Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University and the Newberry Library.
* Williams, David Park. (1965
"Hook and Ahab: Barrie's Strange Satire on Melville." ''PMLA'', December 1965.Retrieved 25 March 2014.
* Wilson, A.N. (2008)
Retrieved 25 March 2014.
* Wright, Nathalia. (1949). ''Melville's Use of the Bible''. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahab
Characters in American novels of the 19th century
Fictional amputees
Fictional characters from Massachusetts
Literary characters introduced in 1851
Fictional professional hunters
Fictional sea captains
Male characters in literature
Male literary villains
Male characters in film
Male film villains
Moby-Dick
Fiction about revenge