ABSTRACT
Ahab’s magnificent rant transfigures his bankrupt life and impoverished sensibility, and grants him in his twilight years an unearned heroic stature, not because of his humanity but because of his “crazy” courage. If Ahab warps life by fixating his fifty-eight years of hurts upon a whale, he bequeaths his fixation to “another orphan” who in turn will narrate a tale of this “leviathanic” projection of megalomania, self-hatred, and life-hate, and which he will eventually christen Moby-Dick. Like Ahab he himself not only bears the name of a biblical outcast but also worships non-Christian gods and finds companionship with one of an alien culture. In rage and deprivation but in heroic diction Ahab distorts the cosmos to conform to his own self-image. In a few lines he accomplishes three things: he minimizes his own “performance” as an artist, ridicules the narrative, and undercuts Ahab’s and his own greatness.
