MovieChat Forums > Moby Dick (1956) Discussion > Moby Dick, Hero of the Seas

Moby Dick, Hero of the Seas

posted 13 years ago by magolding
14 replies | jump to latest

Some people have asked what Ahab's problem with Moby Dick was. I, too, do not see why Ahab wanted vengeance onf Moby Dick for merely biting off Ahab's leg.

One of the main rules of all good ethical systems is that people are people no matter what species of intelligent beings they belong to. And since there is not guarantee that present day society has correctly identified each and every species of intelligent beings on other planets or even here on Earth, there is a degree of uncertainty about which entities are people with full Human (and non Human) rights and which are be mere objects or animals without those rights.

And all good people will treat all uncertain cases as if they were absolutely certain that they were people with full rights, and all evil persons will treat all uncertain cases as if they were absolutely certain that they were mere animals or objects without rights. That is one of the main ways to tell the difference between good and evil persons.

And present day science believes that Cetacians in general and sperm whales in particular are extremely intelligent and extremely social beings who. like the great apes and elephants, should be considered only very, very slightly sub human and only very, very slightly less than full people. So obviously there is a possibllity that cetecians in general and sperm whales in particular might be just very, very slightly more intelligent and social beings than present day science thinks they are, which would make them exactly as intelligent and social as Humans and exactly as much people with full Human rights as Human beings.

Thus nobody can possibly be absolutely certain that whales in general and sperm whales in particular are not people with full rights. And therefore everyone must treat whales as if they were absolutely certain that whales were people with full rights.

Suppose that you were certain that sperm whales were people with the full rights of intelligent beings. Then you would have to view all the Human characters in the novel was evil, vile, ruthless killers who slaughtered and butchered other people in order to sell products derived from the body parts of their victims for a profit. They would be very, very little better than cannibals who kill people to eat because they like the taste, - and not because extreme starvation drives them to it - and in order to sell some of the Human meat to other cannibals for a profit.

But Moby Dick would be the great hero of the novel, if unintended by the Author. He alone, of all the characters, never attacked anyone who was not attacking him or others of Moby's people. He alone never killed any person except in self defense or in defense of others.

Have you ever heard of sperm whales smashing any small boats except for whale boats which were attacking whales? have you ever heard of sperm whales sinking any ships which were not whaling ships whose boats were out attacking whales at the time?

If it was common for sperm whales to smash and sink boats and ships which were harmless to whales, to you think that any Humans would ever have dared to sail out of sight of land? If sperm whales aggressively attacked all boats and ships they encountered, would Madagascar, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Polynesia, Japan, or Iceland ever have been settled by Humans? Would there have been a shipbuilding industry in Medieval Spain capable of building the ships of Columbus if sailing out of sight of land was suicide?

I'm not certain how Captain Ahab lost his leg. I think that Moby Dick smashed his whale boat and bit off Ahab's leg when Ahab was in the water. Have you ever considered how slight the resistance a human leg would make to a biting sperm whale's mouth, and how little the whale would feel or notice that minor resistance? When people or animals are excited or in pain they take many minor actions without being aware of them. And biting hard on nothing seems to be a reaction to pain or stress in Humans.

So I say that Ahab should not have made a big deal about an excited whale who he may have seen bite a boat in half unconsciously biting down very slightly in the middle of a fight.

Remember that Ahab and some of the other whalers on his boat survived the destruction of their boat - Ahab even survived despite losing a leg and may have been helped to stay afloat by another whaler until another boat came to pick them up.

Suppose a sailor dumped into the sea saw a shark about seven or eight feet long nearby. He would be afraid the shark might attack him, since most people attacked, or killed, or eaten by sharks are attacked by sharks about that size.

Suppose that a shark about seven or eight feet long - large enough to be a human killer - noticed a large great white shark about twice its length and over eight times its weight nearby. That smaller shark would certainly react by trying to minimize the danger that the great white shark might attack and eat it, which would be a realistic thing for the smaller shark to fear.

Killer whales have been known to attack and kill great white sharks, so even a large great white shark might be afraid if it noticed a killer whale nearby.

Intelligent animals like killer whales probably have dreams and nightmares, and if they do they may very well have nightmares abut being chased or attacked by sperm whales.

But Moby Dick was no ordinary sperm whale, he was THE GREAT WHITE WHALE, a super giant bull sperm whale who might have been the largest carnivore in the whole world at the time, and he was almost infinitely more powerful and deadly than an ordinary potentially man-eating shark that would terrify any swimmer who noticed it nearby.

So Ahab and the other whalers in the sea with him at the time he lost his leg were totally at the mercy of Moby Dick, who was almost infinitely more dangerous than the smallest sea monster that could have killed or eaten one or more of them.

So after being rescued Ahab should have gone down on his knees and thanked the mercy of God for his survival with only the loss of a leg, and the survival of his comrades in the water with him. And he should also have thanked the mercy of Moby Dick the boat-eater for only killing as many whalers as was necessary in defense, and not bothering to kill the whalers in the water as he could have done so very, very, easily.

[–] Aidy 13 years ago

There is some evidence/speculation that it isn't just Ahab's leg that was destroyed but his "third leg" too, if you get my drift. Given that he was married and unable to leave an heir that might have heightened his hatred.

You also have a fairly poor grasp of the novel in general, as Ahab kinda was portrayed as an evil demon, and in a way the whale was indeed the hero of the novel. Its whiteness not only making it easily distinguished but also tending toward it having an angelic quality.

[–] magolding 13 years ago

The teeth of sperm whales are very impressive but they are not designed to cut neatly through flesh like the teach of great white sharks, let alone slice clearly though bones like the teeth of Megalodon. in fact they don't seem to be used in eating at all.

Undigested large prey like giant squid from sperm whale stomachs usually show no bite marks, indicating that the whales rarely bite their prey before swallowing it whole.

So if Moby Dick chomped on Ahab's leg it would have been more like the leg was squashed in a large stamping machine than cut off by a giant scissors. When Ahab was rescued a ship's surgeon would have had to amputate Ahab's useless leg to prevent deadly infection.

I do not think that a peg leg could be fitted on a leg without several inches of s remaining stump. Thus the surgeon would have had to cut off Ahab's leg a little bit above the beginning of the crushed. shattered, and flattened part and at least several inches below Ahab's groin.

Furthermore, if any part of Ahab's abdomen was bitten into or crushed by Moby Dick Ahab would have suffered a fatal infection. And Ahab's other leg was not bitten off, nor was it seriously injured as far as i know.

So picture the shape and size of sperm whale's mouth (although Moby Dick's mouth was likely to be much larger than normal) and try to picture an arrangement of Ahab's body and Moby Dick's mouth which would have resulted in Moby biting off one and only one of Ahab's legs and another part without harming the other leg or Ahab''s vital organs and while leaving s stump long enough to attach a peg leg.

I think that would have to be a one in a million bite to accomplish such a complex and detailed set of requirements.

[–] knightwind88 13 years ago

Read the damned book, please.

There is a chapter that clearly describes Ahab having once been found unconscious on Nantucket's streets, his whalebone (not wooden) leg having been caught between cobblestones, breaking in two, and the shattered portion driven like a stake into his groin by the fall, thereby destroying his genitalia. That's why he want's vengeance on "a dumb thing" (an animal). Moby Dick is not just a whale, he is God. The image of the whale is a pasteboard mask worn by God. Ahab is quite upset that God set in motion a sequence of events that led to the removal of his manhood.

The book says that Ahab only "dented" his marriage pillow once before going to sea. That one and only moment of sex with is new, and very young wife, resulted in the birth of a child, but Ahab came back from the sea injured and ultimately unable to have sex again due to the subsequent injury described above. That would drive any man mad.

His motivation is quite clear to anyone who bothers to stop making wild speculations on IMDb and sits down to actually read the book.

[–] magolding 13 years ago

Yes, well one of my great great grand aunts was the second wife of a doctor who at one time got in trouble with his church. When accused of sexual improprities he allegedly pulled down his pants to show that a Civil War wound made the accusations impossible - and then was censored for exposing himself.

I never read anything about him being so maddened by his wound that he went on any kind of rampage to kill whoever he might have blamed for it. So you are wrong about such an event driving any man mad.

And haven't there been countless thousands and thousands of eunuchs in history? I never read about any famous eunuchs driven mad by their condition and seeking revenge.

[–] magolding 13 years ago

If it was actually true that "that would drive any man mad" it would mean that no man had the power for resist being driven mad by such an event. Every man who suffered such an event would be driven mad by it. Every one of millions of men throughout history.

So surely there would not be a single example in all of history of an eunuch being entrusted with great political, military, or religious power and responsibility, because everyone would know that all eunuchs were maddened and irresponsible and dangerous to friend and foe alike.

Finding examples of eunuchs given great political, military, or religious authority would prove that people who actually knew eunuchs believed that most of them were not driven mad by losing their manhood and were reasonably trustworthy. About as trustworthy as complete men, at least.

It would prove that Ahab was a comparatively weak man who was maddened with lust for revenge on God and the world for an injury that countless thousands of stronger men could put in the past, managing to move on with their lives.

[–] murdoch1111 11 years ago

@ knightwind88

I agree that the original poster should read the book.

I do not agree with your interpretation of it.

[–] mct-43971 8 years ago

As has been suggested in other replies, READ THE BOOK! Ahab's motivation is explained in CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick:

"His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the
eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had
dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking
with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale.
That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his
sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab’s
leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no
hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming malice.
Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal
encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale,
all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came
to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his
intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before
him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which
some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with
half a heart and half a lung.....

It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at
the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the
monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate,
corporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that tore him, he
probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more.
Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long
months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one
hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape;
then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another;
and so interfusing, made him mad..."

[–] murdoch1111 11 years ago

@Aidy » Tue Sep 6 2011

You claim, ". . . in a way the whale was indeed the hero of the novel."

I emphatically agree. Too many people miss Herman Melville's ultimate point.

[–] The_Dying_Flutchman 13 years ago

Since yer so interested in "Moby Dick" why not read the novel instead of spouting all this gibberish?

A hydrocephalic takes pleasure in milking his cranial harp.

[–] magolding 13 years ago

What gibberish? please explain what I wrote that seemed like gibberish to you?

[–] magolding 13 years ago

In Ahab's day whalers believed that Sperm Whales drifted in the deep waters and opened their white mouths to attract squid and fish into their mouths.

A modern theory is that the long narrow lower jaw with two rows of teeth looks just like a giant squid arm or tentacle with suckers. It claims that the whales eat the giant squid which come to investigate what looks like another giant squid.

Since toothless sperm whales seem healthy and well fed, it is believed that sperm whales are suction feeders, they get close to their prey and then open their mouths or their throats and suck in their prey. Also they may scoop up mud at the bottom of the sea and swallow any good-sized creatures in it.

There is no need for sperm whales to bite precisely.

A sperm whale would have a big problem purposely biting a little human. The Sperm Whale's jaw is long and narrow and slung under it's head. Its eyes are on the sides of its head, making it hard to see down around its jaws. Its sonar system probably covers a wide cone ahead of the whale and probably is not accurate down near the mouth.

Of course whalers in Ahab's day didn't know about echolocation.

Probably any tiny human (as opposed to a large whaleboat, for example) who is close enough to be bitten is probably too close for the whale to tell where it is.

So a human bitten by an excited sperm whale would probably be bitten accidentally. And Ahab should have known that.

[–] magolding 13 years ago

I wrote:

"In Ahab's day whalers believed that Sperm Whales drifted in the deep waters and opened their white mouths to attract squid and fish into their mouths.

A modern theory is that the long narrow lower jaw with two rows of teeth looks just like a giant squid arm or tentacle with suckers. It claims that the whales eat the giant squid which come to investigate what looks like another giant squid.

Since toothless sperm whales seem healthy and well fed, it is believed that sperm whales are suction feeders, they get close to their prey and then open their mouths or their throats and suck in their prey. Also they may scoop up mud at the bottom of the sea and swallow any good-sized creatures in it.

There is no need for sperm whales to bite precisely.

A sperm whale would have a big problem purposely biting a little human. The Sperm Whale's jaw is long and narrow and slung under it's head. Its eyes are on the sides of its head, making it hard to see down around its jaws. Its sonar system probably covers a wide cone ahead of the whale and probably is not accurate down near the mouth.

Of course whalers in Ahab's day didn't know about echolocation.

Probably any tiny human (as opposed to a large whaleboat, for example) who is close enough to be bitten is probably too close for the whale to tell where it is.

So a human bitten by an excited sperm whale would probably be bitten accidentally. And Ahab should have known that."

PS there is a theory that sperm whales use their echolocation to not only locate their prey, but also to confuse it, and/or stun it, and/or kill it, and/or pre digest it. Yes, not only are they the largest and strongest known carnivores, but they also might have built in death rays.

I must add that does not deny the terrible power that sperm whales can bite with. The fact that their teeth were not built to rip out elephant-sized chunks of flesh from their prey does not make the bites of sperm whales less deadly. The captain of one whaling ship reported that while climbing over the capsized and nine tenths submerged hull of his ship he saw bite marks in the copper plating of the bottom of the hull. Tooth marks from a bite of the sperm whale which had rammed his ship.

Sperm whales often bit whale boats in half with a single bite, and could have fatally crushed any sea creature if they bit with full force on its vital organs. A lot less than a full force bite would have crushed any human to death. And yet I have read of two whalers who were in the jaws of sperm whales and survived, because the whales applied only a tiny fraction of their full biting force.

Nor should it be thought that a human in the water would be safe because a sperm whale might have trouble locating him to bite once he was close enough to bite. They have other ways to harm creatures that are in the water with them.

For example, they wrecked whale boats by biting them, or by ramming them, or by swatting them with their mighty tales, or by rising up under them and capsizing them. If a whale wanted to hurt tiny humans thrown from their boats into the water it could try ramming them or swatting them with its tail. It could also try thrashing about in the hope of slamming them with tons of force. And a whale could try leaping out of the water and falling on them, crushing them.

In 1796 the ship Harmony was sunk when it collided with a whale, or in some versions when a whale jumped out of the sea and landed on its deck. No man could survive being jumped on by a whale that could sink a ship by jumping on it.

The many whalers who survived being thrown into the water by angry whales survived only because the whales did not try to kill them.

[–] murdoch1111 11 years ago

@magolding » Fri Sep 2 2011

You remark, "Some people have asked what Ahab's problem with Moby Dick was. I, too, do not see why Ahab wanted vengeance onf Moby Dick for merely biting off Ahab's leg."

If you and others who post here read Melville's magnificent book, you'll understand Ahab's motivation for killing Moby-Dick. Melville makes it clear.

And "merely biting off" someone's leg is not a trivial matter.

[–] magolding 9 years ago

And "merely biting off" someone's leg is not a trivial matter.

It is a very trivial matter when one has a mouth like Moby Dick's.

I have to admit that a sperm whale would probably not be able to bite off Ahab's leg cleanly but would probably have mashed it to a pulp at the point where it was bitten, so the surgeon would have had to amputate it after Ahab was rescued. So in that one single respect Moby Dick might have been inferior to a ten foot long shark, even though he may have weighed a thousand times as much as that puny little shark. Melville was fudging his science when he described Moby Dick as having razor sharp teeth.

But of course Moby Dick might have been a supernatural being disguised as a whale and had different teeth from a real whale.

Remember that Melville described Moby as a very large sperm whale and also wrote that a first rank sperm whale would be about 90 or 100 feet long - whether real whales get that long or not - and so Moby Dick was probably that long.

If a fifty foot long sperm whale weighs about 45 tons a whale 1.8 to 2.0 times that long would have about 5.83 to 8.0 times the volume and thus weigh about 262.44 to 360 tons and would be much larger than any known dinosaur or any blue whale, usually considered the largest animal ever. Thus we may imagine that Moby Dick might have been the largest animal ever on Earth, and a carnivore.

Perhaps you should watch The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men(1952) and note the fate of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Sperm whales might not be built to rip apart other creatures, but any man who was in the jaws of even an ordinary sperm whale when it chomped down with all it's force would be just as doomed as the sheriff of Nottingham in The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men.

How did they hunt sperm whales in those days? They lowered open boats from the ships and rowed or sailed them as quietly as they could up to a whale resting on the surface and then suddenly jabbed it with a harpoon attached to a long length of rope so the whale could not get away form the boat. Not OSHA complaint. The potential for accidents was obvious to all the men involved. Nobody could blame anyone but himself if he was injured.

Note this poster from the movie.https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dominiquebesson.com/photos_gm/moby-dick-ital-4F.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dominiquebesson.com/vintage-movie-poster-6578-moby-dick.htm&h=425&w=298&tbnid=J2NSxwqhbIkSjM:&docid=nZ-vhaETZ771tM&ei=-ebZVrCkKOz9jgTIjZIg&tbm=isch&ved=0ahUKEwjwhJzl5qfLAhXsvoMKHciGBAQQMwg5KBQwFA

Moby Dick has a whaleboat in his jaws and he is about to bite it in half - as many real whales much smaller than Moby Dick actually did. Any sane man would jump out of the whaleboat by now.

Look at this still showing Ahab, with two legs - apparently the scene where Ahab lost this leg.https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/159840432.jpg&imgrefurl=http://flashbak.com/filming-moby-dick-at-elstree-film-studios-and-ireland-1954-44675/&h=594&w=472&tbnid=GMwt9KOU9TJinM:&docid=6-iWufaNX8TVGM&ei=-ebZVrCkKOz9jgTIjZIg&tbm=isch&ved=0ahUKEwjwhJzl5qfLAhXsvoMKHciGBAQQMwhOKCkwKQ

It looks like the length of Moby Dick's mouth is about twice Ahab's height, or about 12 feet. Sperm whales can open their lower jaws to an angle of about 90 degrees. Thus I calculate that there can be as much as 16.9 feet between the tips of Moby Dick's jaws when he opens them all the way. (There are actually a few longer sperm whale jaws known to science.)

And look at this still, apparently from the same scene. https://www.google.com/search?q=Moby+Dick+gregory+Peck&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzwMP55afLAhUEmR4KHcM2D_0Q_AUICCgC&biw=1280&bih=887#tbm=isch&q=Moby+Dick+%281956%29&imgrc=zCu5W7KUwt4EOM%3A

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://roberthood.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/peck-mobydick.jpg&imgrefurl=http://roberthood.net/blog/index.php/2008/09/26/the-revenge-of-moby-dick/&h=394&w=519&tbnid=lCVBIZb-TtsMIM:&docid=LkNkEUM6wIvI4M&ei=Qe3ZVr33M6KujgSt0q7AAg&tbm=isch&ved=0ahUKEwj9m4jk7KfLAhUil4MKHS2pCyg4ZBAzCCYoIjAi

Ahab is standing in the whaleboat which is inside the mouth of Moby Dick. Moby's teeth in this scene are not much - if any - larger than the largest known sperm whale teeth, while the largest known sperm whales (though much smaller than Moby Dick) could open their mouths at least as wide as this, implying that Moby may have started to bite.

So Ahab is standing in the mouth of the most dangerous predator ever, in danger of being instantly mashed to a pulp, and what is he doing? He is jabbing the tender inside of the mouth with a harpoon in order to further enrage the most dangerous being ever on Earth.

And yet Ahab complains and seeks vengeance for merely loosing his leg in the bite which followed, instead of being grateful that he was saved from the instant death he had invited!