Let Us Not Forget “Moby Dick” and The Lesson It Spells Out

I was watching T.V. the other day and I saw “Moby Dick” was on the menu, my partner announced she had never seen it or read the famous novel written by “Herman Melville” in 1851.  Many critics have stated in their opinion Moby Dick is The Great American Novel, and a treasure of the literary world!

The version of the film we watched starred “Gregory Peck” in my opinion the best version of all (no offence to the movie that starred Patrick Stewart) it had the benefit of Technicolor, which gives the film a warm glow and a classic feel. 

As a child when I watched the movie I completely missed the hidden and not so hidden themes such as, Religion, prejudice, idealism, pragmatism, racism, politics, and of course revenge and retribution.  As a child all I thought the plot involved was captain “Ahab” trying to kill a huge white whale because crippled him.

Some of the characters have biblical names such as “Gabriel” and “Ishmael”  Some critics have gone so far as to say the crew of the whaling ship “Pequod” represents the whole world in miniature. 

I’m not a literary critic so I bow to their opinion.  I’m going to concentrate just on the revenge aspect of the film.  Captain Ahab risks and indeed loses everything he had in the search for vengeance, he puts aside wealth as he leaves the whaling grounds in search of Moby Dick.  He also refuses to help a fellow captain whose own son is lost in the sea, Ahab refuses to search the area for the poor boy, and the captain tells Ahab “May God have mercy on your soul, if indeed you have one”

The Bible itself sends out mixed messages on the subject of revenge.  It states “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord”  clearly teaching us to not seek retribution from anyone just leave it to God.  Conversely it teaches us “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” this is thought to mean if someone wrongs you wrong them back in the same way?

I’ll give a very personal example of vengeance, when I was a younger man I was married (I wont use her name for obvious reasons) after some years of being married, my wife had an affair with my closet friend (at the time clearly not my friend now) she proceeded to leave me for him.  The up-shot of this was I couldn’t afford the repayments on our property alone, therefore I had to sell the property.  So in one fell swoop I had lost my wife and my home.