Defining Captain Ahab: contradicting notions of authority in 1850 American society

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Title

Defining Captain Ahab: contradicting notions of authority in 1850 American society

Identifier

honSP2014Handley

Type

["Text"]

Genre

["Honors Theses"]

Format

["pdf"]

Rights

Access to this document has been permanently and indefinitely restricted by the author until or unless the author submits a written request to Special Collections & Archives to change the access restrictions and/or make it freely available. Only Albert S. Cook Library staff members may access this file for administrative purposes unless written permission from the author is presented to staff members of the Towson University Special Collections & Archives department. Copyright protected. All rights reserved.

General Notes

Honors thesis research directed by the Department of English.

Extent

42 pages

Language

["English"]

File Size

517825 Bytes

Collection Name

["Towson University Honors Theses"]

Author

Handley, Kellie

Department or Program

["Towson University. Department of English"]

Abstract

[From thesis]

There is a piece of Ahab inside the whale that is not going to be regained until Moby Dick is dead. Ahab's broken psyche is relying on him to seek revenge and destroy what destroyed him; the White Whale had to die in order for Captain Ahab to survive. This is the compensation that Ahab is so adamantly trying to achieve. Driving him to seek revenge is the identification with Moby Dick that Ahab possesses. This obsession with vengeance causes Ahab's neurotic tendencies to progress slowly into a much deeper, more mystical obsession. There is nothing that could satisfy the hunger for revenge; Ahab has a one-track mind. He is a monomaniac. Ahab was a victim of the traumatic neurosis that lies at the root of his psychological damage. There is nothing more important to Ahab than killing the whale. Nothing but sending the White Whale to his grave will serve as equal compensation, and Ahab sees no better justification for his actions, which had resulted from the initial trauma of dismemberment. There was no considerable substitute for seeking the internal and external gain from this illness; there was no “treatment” that Ahab could undergo that would rid him of this neurotic behavior. It is most beneficial for the purposes of understanding the core of Ahab's character that we perform a psychoanalytic study of this monomaniacal captain in order to determine how Captain Ahab's traumatic past creates a character that contradicts notions of political, transcendental, and religious authorities in America during mid-century 1800's.

Date Published

08 November 2014

Specialization

["American Renaissance"]

Author (Controlled)

["Handley, Kellie"]

Thesis Advisor

["Vincent, Jonathan E."]

Degree Note

2014-05

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