ABSTRACT
… When Ahab dies and Ishmael is spared, one generation succeeds another according to the ancient formula. In a real sense Ahab fathers Ishmael. 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. Aboard the Pequod, in a patriarchal environment which sanctions his caprices, Ahab is lord, and Ishmael an insignificant seaman, the one active and the other passive. In recording Ahab’s fate Ishmael reverses the order and replaces his rival.
