The Psychological Factor of the Sinking of the Pequod Anonymous 11th Grade

With a variety of perspectives on the matter and a comprehensive reading of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick through the psychological lens, it is evident that the demise of the ship— the Pequod— can be traced back to Captain Ahab’s obsession for vengeance against the sperm whale that took his leg: Moby Dick.

In the modern day, people are reluctant to take a gander at reading Melville’s Moby Dick purely because of the sheer size of the novel; however, by taking time to read the novel, people find that the characters and their interactions with the world around them vividly reflect the real world away from ships in the Pacific Ocean. Chris Power, writing for The Guardian, acknowledges the relationship between Moby Dick and reality in his article analyzing Captain Ahab. He notes that “[Ahab] most obviously appears to foreshadow the various 20th-century dictators and demagogues that have been compared to him” (Power). By understanding the characters in the novel, people can come to understand how they relate to others within a historical context or in their own social lives. What Moby Dick also alludes to is the power of fear on the human mind. During her TED Talk “What Fear Can Teach Us”, Karen Thompson Walker elaborates on a type of...