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 or retribution.  As a child all I thought was the plot, revolved around was captain “Ahab” trying to kill a huge white whale because it bit his leg off.
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 very 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 so I had to sell the property.  So in one fell swoop I had lost my wife and my home.

After a little while my wife had four children by this man.  I was contacted by letter several times requesting a divorce in fact pleading for a divorce.  I was so enraged still I would not grant a divorce under any circumstances.  My motives were simple I wanted to hurt her as much as she hurt me!  This situation carried on for six years until my father turned up one day and took me out for a drink.  He was not a well man he had a terminal illness, he made a request of me, he explained to me that he respected me very much but my decision regarding the divorce was wrong and out of character for me.

He continued to say that to deny their marriage was cruel and vengeful.  He did not want me to become consumed with revenge he wanted me to take the attitude “of two wrongs don’t make a right” and to forget what they had done to me and move on stating “Life is too short” for my fathers sake I granted the divorce.  I still have mixed feeling about my decision.  My father passed away not long after my divorce came through, he had stated he was proud of me for moving on.

On a much more serious note, I’m looking back at the “Twin Towers” terrorist attacks on 9/11 that mass murder sickened me to my very stomach and the images on the world news are embedded in my mind, my absolute sympathy goes out to every one who lost someone on that terrible day.

At what cost is revenge taking us to? The “War on Terror” is eight years on and its escalating.  I want the perpetrators caught and punished as much as the next man.  We have invaded two countries,  America and British soldiers are being killed daily.  I am not a pacifist or a conscientious objector by any stretch of imagination.  I just wish we could use our intelligence services to identify the murderers and bring them to justice without so many more deaths of our citizens.  I’m sure many people will disagree with me, I just don’t want our two nations to be sailing on the good ship “Pequod”

Lord Banks