Character+List

Main Characters:


 * Ishmael**: The narrator of the novel. Ishmael is the only well educated man aboard the whaling vessel, formerly being a school teacher, but is not doing this for profit. Ishmael suffers from some deep sense of spiritual malaise, and he travels out to sea because going whaling is his version of committing suicide, for he believes whalers are lost to the world. He also represents the differential between the education level of the crew of the ship and the deep, philosophical tale that Melville scribes. This makes him seem like less of a character an more of an instrument of the author.


 * Captain Ahab**: The monomaniacal captain of the Pequod. He lost his one leg to Moby Dick on his last outing. True to the definition, Ahab is a tragic hero. His fatal flaw is his extreme overconfidence, which leads to the round the world journey of revenge. He believes that Moby Dick is the embodiment of all evil, and that it is his indisputable fate to defeat the whale. He also happens to be a Quaker, who are generally pacifists.


 * Moby Dick**: More of a metaphor than a character in the usual sense, Moby Dick is a Giant Albino Sperm Whale, one of a kind. He can be seen as a representation of God, nature, the Ocean, or even the Universe, and mankind's conflict with it. We never see any motivations behind him, which is part of what makes him so mysterious.