Ahab’s Longing for the “Other Side”
Ahab’s monologue in the chapter “The Sphynx” is one of the few chances we as readers are able to witness this curious captain in a raw and emotional state. Within this speech, Ahab is in a sense begging the whale to reveal the secrets of the ocean that remain useless in the decaying head of the animal, demanding it to “speak, thou vast and venerable head” (249). It is clear that Ahab believes the whale has a knowledge and wisdom far beyond that of any human. They have seen tragedies too great and horrors too gruesome. They have witnessed lawless murders and crimes unpunished. Though Ahab implores that the whale has “seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham”, the head prevails in silence.This monologue, in particular, highlights Ahab’s longing to break through the impenetrable barrier that confines him to the human realm. He yearns for something more, something beyond the proverbial other side where in lies his answers, his paradise, and his reason to live.
This speech echoes his previous sentiments in the chapter “The Quarter Deck” in which Ahab again exhorts, “How can a prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me” (140). Ahab sees the white whale as the embodiment of a power outside the physical world of visible nature. Is it God? Is it Satan? Ahab does not say, but for him, peace will only be found in its destruction.
It seems counterintuitive to me that while Ahab is begging and pleading with a rotting whale for answers, if he were to get the chance to kill the white whale he would in a heartbeat. To me it doesn’t make sense to kill these whales in order to try and see what they’ve seen. This action seems to add more to all the misery and horror that such whales have been through. But such is just surface detail. The whales clearly seem to be representations of something more. I think that there are definitely several interpretations of all the scenes in this book; to me in this scene this dead whale is maybe representative of Ahab himself- yelling and screaming at it in order to understand it (himself). Maybe he is self relecting on what he is doing out at sea still despite all he’s been through and seen.