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A more thorough analysis of Moby Dick (and many other great works of literature) can be found in Cliff Notes and Spark Notes ... both sites highly recommended. Both excellent excellent sites. What makes the internet great is that there are such sites where one can spend many delightful hours. C'mon, you didn't think all these insights came out of my own head. And now for a few interesting tidbits of information, here goes:

Chapter 36 is one of the most significant chapters in the novel, Melville employs a dramatic technique - complete with brief stage directions, dialogue, and rousing speech, as well as narrative intervention. This is one of several dramatized chapters in the novel. The method is especially effective here because it allows the reader to see how charismatic and forceful Ahab can be as a leader and speaker.

As the day wears on, it is clear to Stubb that something important is stirring in Ahab. The second mate tells Flask that "the chick that's in him (Ahab) pecks the shell." This is the time that Ahab chooses to announce his true intentions to the crew and attempt to persuade the men to join him in a singular effort to hunt down the White Whale. Like a speaker at a political rally, Ahab first unifies the group by asking a series of emotionally charged questions that call for unified responses: What do you do when you spot a whale? What do you do next? What tune do you pull to in pursuit? The men are increasingly excited, almost as if they are in the blood lust of a real hunt. Ahab then employs his prop, a Spanish gold ounce, offered to the man who first sees ("raises") the White Whale. He dramatically holds up the coin to the declining sun and nails it to the mainmast.

The harpooners are the first to recognize the whale's description - the white head, wrinkled brow, crooked jaw, three holes in the starboard fluke - as that of Moby Dick. Their enthusiastic confirmations, and the revelation that Moby Dick took off the captain's leg, lead Ahab into an emotional appeal to the crew to join him in chasing the whale "over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out." The men shout their enthusiastic approval. The only abstention is from Starbuck who wants to stick to the business of accumulating whale oil and thinks it "blasphemous" to seek revenge on a "dumb brute" that simply smote thee from blindest instinct." Ahab responds that he would "strike the sun if it insulted me." This scene clarifies the primary difference between Starbuck and Ahab: Starbuck attributes no meaning to how and why things happen; Ahab interprets meaning in everything.

Scholars dispute whether Ahab considers Moby Dick to be a representative of evil or whether the captain's vanity is so great that he wants to take on the structure of nature, even G-d himself. Is the whale evil, or is the evil in Ahab? The captain seems half-mad as he rants about attacking the "inscrutable thing" behind the "mask," the force behind the facade that is the whale.

To understand Ahab's obsession, we must try to understand what he really wants to kill. Is it the whale or a power he sees behind the whale? These are questions to consider as the novel progresses. A convincing argument can be made that Ahab wants to be G-d and is offended that he should have to bear the insult of any authority beyond himself. The "inscrutable thing" dares to limit Ahab's role in the world. Ahab thinks that he is filled with a superhuman power, an interior electricity that would kill mere mortals. As he offers wine to the three harpooners, ceremonially celebrating a commitment to a unified cause, the scene has the impact of a diabolical black mass. Ahab is a powerful man, charismatic, obsessed, even mad, and he has all but one (Starbuck) of the crew under his control.

In Chapter 42 we ask what the White Whale is to Ahab? Ishmael thinks that Ahab views the whale as an embodiment of all evil. It may be helpful to consider Ahab's comments in Chapter 36. The irrepressible captain there sees Moby Dick as a "mask," behind which lies a great power whose dominance Ahab refuses to accept. Ahab himself says (Chapter 41) that his means are sane but his motive and object are mad. However, Ahab may not be the best judge. We are told that he was attacking the White Whale with only a six-inch blade, like an "Arkansas duellist," the day that Moby Dick's lower teeth sliced away the captain's leg as a mower would a blade of grass. That method of attacking the whale seems insane, driven by the captain's excessive determination.

Many scholars, including most notably Harold Bloom (in Moby-Dick: Modern Critical Interpretations) consider Chapter 42, "The Whiteness of the Whale," to be the "visionary center" of the novel and perhaps of all of Melville's writing. Students might note the rich ambiguity of Ishmael's inquiry into the significance of the whale's "visible absence of color." In that whiteness, Ishmael sees innocence and evil, glory and damnation in a nine-page chapter that is one of the most rewarding in the novel. We are not spoon-fed meaning by Melville. As with most great writers, he allows the reader to form his own conclusions.

Chapter 109 (another confrontation between Ahab and Starbuck) Twice a week, a whaler like the Pequod, if it is carrying any significant amount of oil, floods the hold (at the bottom of the ship) with salt water in order to keep the casks "damply tight." If oil is discovered in the water, the mariners know that some casks are leaking. When Starbuck learns of leaks in the ship's cargo, he properly reports the problem to his captain and requests permission to stop the ship and direct all hands toward investigation and repairs.

The problem reveals a stark contrast between the first mate's and the captain's conceptions of the purpose of the journey. Starbuck wants to fill the hold with oil, protect it, and return home. As he says, "What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth saving, sir." Ahab responds, "So it is, so it is; if we get it." Starbuck means the oil; Ahab means the White Whale. Starbuck reminds the captain of the owners' interests. Ahab could not care less about the owners. He points a loaded musket toward the first mate and declares, "There is one G-d that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod." Ahab orders Starbuck back on deck. The first mate leaves, saying, "Let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man." Ahab thinks about that and agrees. For whatever reason, he soon goes on deck and commands that the ship must stop for repairs. Ishmael speculates that the captain's action may be a prudent response to Starbuck's dissatisfaction.

Ahab seems relieved when Starbuck obeys his order to return to deck. Obsessed though he is, the captain realizes that he could be accused of usurpation, unlawfully using the ship for his own purposes rather than following the owners' directions. Starbuck, on the other hand, has only two choices. He can go along with the captain's orders or attempt to take over the ship ... a drastic and extremely dangerous option even if he could convince the crew to support him. Justification for mutiny would be hard to prove, and the penalties, if he were found guilty, would be severe. Ahab's decision to repair the casks wisely resolves the situation for the time being.

Throughout the book, the narrator (Ishmael) seems to thrive on contrasts: good vs. evil, white vs. black, starboard vs. port, G-d vs. Satan, madness vs. reason. However, it must be said that Ishmael seldom actually sees the world in such simplistic terms. Ultimately, opposites are only philosophical points of departure for the narrator. Neither Ahab nor Moby Dick, for example, can be limited to a single definition. The characters and issues here are complex, and Ishmael seems to delight in that rich view of life.

Chapter 104 (after Ahab has Perth, the ship's blacksmith, and whose life was ruined by alcohol, shape him an especially powerful harpoon) ... Ahab's dark motives become more clear as he has Perth shape a powerful harpoon out of strong steel nails from racing horses' shoes. The captain asks the three pagan harpooners on board to provide the point with a "true death-temper" of their own blood, which they do. In a baptism ritual that would please Satan, Ahab covers the barb with that blood and speaks a Latin alteration of the Christian sacrament: "Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli." ("I do not baptize thee in the name of the father, but in the name of the devil.")

Chapters 129-132 ... The tone of the novel grows even darker, increasingly ominous as the Pequod sails closer and closer to Moby Dick. Ahab feels himself growing too soft with Pip and finds it necessary to distance himself from the loving child. He feels that Pip is "too curing to my malady. Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health." Ahab will allow no serenity or sanity to deter him. A creeping paranoia causes the captain to distrust his crew. Perhaps some on watch have seen the White Whale but failed to call out. Ahab himself takes the lookout at the mainmast, lifted to the post in a basket. A hawk toys with him, one more taunting gesture from nature, and steals his hat, which Ishmael sees as an evil omen.

The meeting with the Delight reminds us of the dangers of the impending encounter. As usual, Ahab calls out, "Hast seen the White Whale?" Indeed, the Delight's captain has, as evidenced by a smashed whaleboat and a funeral even now taking place aboard ship. One seaman is being buried; the White Whale sent four others directly to their ocean graves the previous day. Ahab wants no part in this recognition of defeat. He orders the Pequod to sail on, but not soon enough to avoid hearing the splash of the corpse as it hits the sea.

Ahab has one last moment of reflection before the chase begins with Moby Dick. It is a gorgeous day on the Pacific as Ahab crosses the deck and gazes over the rail. Starbuck joins him. Ahab recalls his forty years at sea, harpooning his first whale at age eighteen; finally marrying "a much younger girl" when he was past fifty; sailing for Cape Horn the next day. Of those forty years, he has not spent three ashore. He calls himself a "fool." But when Starbuck attempts to persuade him to turn back and go home, Ahab says he is no longer in control of his fate: "What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me?" This is the beginning of the greatest speech in the novel, near the end of Chapter 132, a soliloquy (only a page long) that should be read aloud and in full to be appreciated. It reads like this;

"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I.

By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and the airs smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid greenness; as last year's scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut swarths..."

The captain is no stereotype and certainly is no ordinary man. He is a complicated, deep, tortured soul. He even knows he is mad, but he cannot stop himself. Ahab contemplates the beauties of life and death as he notices that "the air smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay." We all will sleep at last in one place or another. We will sleep and "rust amid greenness." Ahab is ready to die. Unfortunately, he will take his crew with him. Ahab is no ordinary man, and Melvile was no ordinary writer.

A short bio of this great writer: Born in New York City, the son of New England merchant. He worked at odd jobs (clerk, farmhand, teacher) before sailing to the South Seas on the whaler Acushnet. He deserted his ship, lived among cannibals, mutinied on an Australian boat, then spent two years on an American boat returning to the U.S. He successfully romanticized these adventures, publishing seven novels in six years (Moby Dick in 1851 considered his greatest). I'm not sure what happened but his popularity waned, and by the time he died (1891) he was virtually forgotten. Billy Budd was his last great novel. Time was on Herman Melville's side; a man who can write like he will never be forgotton.