Ahab (RISKS) defying God

[ole32]

The dangers of whaling did not only come from battle with the live whale. Ahab was god like , he seeked revenge against Moby Dick ( the symbol of God.) And along the way him and he's crew prove to be witnesses of ill omens.

Can you help me find some good ideas about this, RISKS in defying GOD, "Maybe any quotes u guys can throw in to support"

CAN AHAB REALLY OVERCOME SUCH A LEVIATHAN, CLAIM TO BE GOD(or God like" AND DEFY SUCH CREATION OF GOD . >>>> THE RISKS!!!?? (Hope that made sense)

Appreciated

[mayneverhave]

The whale is not God because the presence of a god implies a sort of divinity or divine plan in man's place in the universe. The great calamity of the 19th century is what the world would be like without a god to stabilize it - Moby-Dick, and the absolute neutrality of his color is a symbol for nature at its purest, which is completely disinterested in the affairs of man or man's place.

Ahab's rebellion is not against God, then, but against nature, which is, of course, noble and perhaps heroic, but logically impossible because man is a part of nature, and therefore cannot hope to rebel or rise above it.

[Wilde woman]

Here's a short list of quotes about religion in the novel: http://www.shmoop.com/quote/literatu.../religion.html

You'll probably also want to check out the quotes under the theme of revenge.

Good luck!

[mono]

The whale is not God because the presence of a god implies a sort of divinity or divine plan in man's place in the universe. The great calamity of the 19th century is what the world would be like without a god to stabilize it - Moby-Dick, and the absolute neutrality of his color is a symbol for nature at its purest, which is completely disinterested in the affairs of man or man's place.

Ahab's rebellion is not against God, then, but against nature, which is, of course, noble and perhaps heroic, but logically impossible because man is a part of nature, and therefore cannot hope to rebel or rise above it.

I think you really hit the nail on the head here, mayneverhave.
Having just read Moby Dick for the second time a few months ago, its re-read really opened my eyes to the universal truths Melville preached in it. I agree that Captain Ahab attempted to overpower something beyond his realm, but, like you, I would not call that particular thing God, but nature; the white color of the great whale appears one of many symbols. The depths of the sea, how the narrator reports it appearing so dark and limitless shows the inevitable poor human comprehension of his/her surroundings; how Queequeg's coffin, built by himself, eventually ends up the narrator's life-raft, represents the inevitability of death, but its delay by the will to live. Amazing novel!

*Edit:

Here's a short list of quotes about religion in the novel: http://www.shmoop.com/quote/literatu.../religion.html

You'll probably also want to check out the quotes under the theme of revenge.

Good luck!

Oh, and I loved the quotes, Wilde woman, thanks for sharing!

[NikolaiI]

how Queequeg's coffin, built by himself, eventually ends up the narrator's life-raft, represents the inevitability of death, but its delay by the will to live. Amazing novel!

I haven't read the whole novel, and I don't remember that part. So forgive me if I am breaking all the rules of etiquette by posting like this; but I would think, a coffin one built for oneself, later becomes one's life-raft (but not the person who built it? or..?), would symbolize something else to me. To me, just reading your description of it, it would symbolize that death is not the end, that actually death is just like a boat, and no one really dies, but returns to the source...

[mayneverhave]

Queequeg, who is in a feverish near-death state, has a coffin constructed for him, but suddenly decides that he desires to live, rises out of his death-like state and ends up using his constructed coffin as a coffer for his various whaling-tools.

As for coffin as vessel - it reminds me of the descriptions from Mann's "Death in Venice" as the gondola transporting the protagonist being described as a coffin - transporting the protagonist to his death.

Also, going on what you are talking about, Nikolai, (and in a way completely removed from the literature at hand), we are immortal in the sense that even when we die, our molecules are not destroyed, but only scattered about the world into everything else. In that sense, we as biological-wholes are not everlasting, but at least our components are.