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Unlike some neurotics who invent symptoms to hide the truth, creative writers invent stories to reveal the truth. Using the magic of dreams, legends, and myths, they unearth both personal and universal truths. The artist is a dreamer, a seer, and an interpreter. Herman Melville is a great artist, and Moby Dick is a world classic.
Moby Dick (1851) is the stirring saga of one man's pride and obsession for revenge upon a colossal whale that defeated him once before. It is a tale about the sheer futility of the pursuit of power and the hollowness of revenge. Ahab is the dark brooding captain, a hulking figure, determined to fulfill his self-appointed mission to the very end—even if it means sacrificing his ship and crew. Neither Ishmael, the narrator, nor the rest of the unsuspecting crew realize that they have embarked on a voyage straight into the gaping jaws of hell.
If revenge on Moby Dick were Ahab's sole motive, he would not be the kind of hero able to awaken and sustain the interest of readers not only in the 19th century, when the novel was written, but also in the 20th, when Moby Dick was rediscovered. Surely Ahab's incentives consist of more than the simple joy of hunting or spiteful revenge upon an unthinking sea creature. This is what we seek to discover with the help of psychoanalysis.
Moby Dick has been approached from many viewpoints, but none is fully satisfactory. Certainly, Melville the artist is much larger and more fascinating than Melville the man; Melville the artist is elusive in giving his sanction to any particular meaning. Only Ahab thinks that the whole enigma can be easily solved. Melville reminds us that while the whale's eyes, placed on opposite