ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author uses Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, and specifically Ahab and Starbuck, to illustrate the overwhelming need and desire for a paradoxical foundation.
Ahab’s birth was a non-event, a monstrous birth without expulsion. Enraged, he is condemned to chase the betrayal of a promise of expulsion. His obsession with killing the great whale is an obstinate search for the shadow of which he was deprived, for a founding “no”. He is searching for a way to tie the bottomless depth to existence.
As for Starbuck, he can be seen as the paradigmatic figure of the son of a mad parent, who gives up living to prevent the collapse of his furious parent. It is as though Starbuck understands his mad forefathers, and loves them because he knows the infant in them, who cannot speak.
