Melville’s Moby Dick has already been one of those “great books” that has informed my philosophical journey. So much so that one of my current writing projects is intended as a sequel to a sequel to Moby Dick. Yes, at least one sequel does already exist. I’ve mentioned before that one problem which that presents me with – apart from my (in)competence as a narrative writer – is how to cover such a long time-span from a first person perspective? Who is to be my Ishmael? Salman Rushdie supplies an answer in magic-realism-auto-fiction.
My delusions of grandeur may be some time.
Pretty sure my reading doesn’t need the Christian God, but that there are drivers beyond “us” subjects and objects in the real world of here and now is not in doubt. The following is a long X/Twitter quote from “Darwin to Jesus” giving us his reading. (Might come in handy, with due acknowledgement.)
[I should say, just the text below, but the original X/Twitter thread is beautifully illustrated with a collection of images. Go take a look.]
“Call me Ishmael.”
That line starts one of the strangest and most misunderstood books in American literature—Moby-Dick. A tale of man’s fury, fate, and rebellion against… a Whale? Or is there more beneath the surface? A thread on the true meaning of Melville’s masterpiece.
The story begins with Ishmael, a drifter and wanderer. He’s depressed. He needs purpose. So he goes to sea—not for glory, but for healing. “Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul… then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
He joins a whaling ship, the Pequod, along with a strange, diverse crew—including Queequeg, a tattooed pagan harpooner who becomes his closest friend. But the captain isn’t aboard yet…
When Captain Ahab finally appears, he’s nothing like the other sailors. He’s scarred. Monomaniacal. And missing a leg—torn off by a monstrous white whale named Moby Dick. But Ahab doesn’t just want to kill the whale. He wants vengeance.
Ahab gathers the crew and nails a gold coin to the mast. Whoever kills the white whale gets the reward. But it’s not about the coin. It never was. Ahab’s not driven by profit or sport. He’s possessed. “I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.”
As the voyage unfolds, the crew glimpses Ahab’s madness. Even Starbuck, the first mate, trembles at it. He senses this isn’t just a hunt. It’s a holy war. Ahab sees the whale not as an animal, but as the veil covering some cosmic injustice. A force he must destroy.
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks… If man will strike, strike through the mask!” That’s the heart of Ahab’s obsession. He believes the whale is not just a creature—it is God’s mask. And he intends to tear it off.
Meanwhile, Ishmael narrates the journey with wonder, humour, and awe. He’s not like Ahab. He doesn’t rage against the ocean—he listens to it. He reflects on life, death, fate, creation. He’s searching. But he’s not accusing.
The whale itself is a mystery. It appears only briefly—but its presence is everywhere. It’s white. Silent. Enormous. Unfeeling. To Ahab, it becomes the face of a cruel God who never answers. And when it finally comes, Ahab tries to kill it.
The final battle begins when the white whale finally breaches the surface—towering, vast, ghostly. For three days, Ahab pursues it across the sea. The crew harpoons it, but it thrashes and dives, wrecking boats, killing sailors. It’s not just a fight—it’s an apocalypse. Ahab is unrelenting, even as death surrounds him.
On the third day, the whale turns. It rams the Pequod, splitting it open. The sea swallows the ship and her crew. Ahab, in a final act of fury, hurls his harpoon—and the rope coils around his neck. He’s dragged under by the very weapon he used to defy the gods. And then… silence.
Only Ishmael survives—clinging to Queequeg’s coffin, which had been carved earlier as a burial raft, but now floats like an ark. He drifts alone, upheld by what was meant for death, now turned into salvation.
So what is Moby-Dick really about? It’s about a man who cannot forgive God. Ahab is a modern Job—but instead of humility, he chooses defiance. Where Job said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,” Ahab says, “I will strike Him down.”
The white whale is more than nature. It is God’s silence. It is suffering without explanation. It is the abyss we all face in our darkest hours. And Moby-Dick is about how we respond to that silence.
Ahab responds with defiance and hatred. He turns his pain into rage, his suffering into blasphemy. But Ishmael responds to suffering with peace and humility. He seeks truth, not control. In the end, only Ishmael is saved.
Melville wrote a story filled with sermons, signs, symbols. But at its heart is a warning: When we suffer, we can either curse God and die… or float by grace on the coffin that saves us.
Moby-Dick is not about a whale. It’s about the war between pride and providence. Wrath and wonder. Ahab and Ishmael. Man and God. It’s the oldest story in history.
Most people think Moby-Dick is just about a whale, but it’s really about a question… how should we respond to God?
That recurring “more than nature” echoes my “more than science” agenda.
That introductory sentence “A tale of man’s fury, fate, and rebellion against… a Whale? Or is there more beneath the surface?” is pretty self-evident, in the sense that there is no mystery or doubt to any intelligent reader, that the whale and the quest are metaphorical. What is represented metaphorically – about man’s place in the world and the risk of insanity as we quest too close to the edge of reality – is obviously open to interpretation. That said, Melville’s experience, research and writing nevertheless bring the reality – the stench and brutality – of whaling, to the page, which is what makes it a readable, gripping tale independent of the embedded morality play.
=====
Post Note: Am I an atheist? Kinda.
=====
