Something Wicked This Way Comes...

Something Wicked This Way Comes...

In Professor Tom Roche's re-interpretation of Hamlet, Roche argues that the spirit of Hamlet's father is more than a ghost; it is a demonic presence. The apparition feeds Hamlet's feverish paranoia and drives him into a mad and manic state. Roche argues that only an insidious and evil presence can do such a thing to a man. I promise this is relevant to Moby Dick...

On PG. 169 of our second reading, Melville begins to describe Ahab's obsession with the white whale as, "...the eternal, living principle or soul in him; in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer integral."

Ahab's obsession is an entity of its own. It lives apart from Ahab. In my opinion, this obsession seems demonic, but not in the Christian sense of demonic (Legion, ect.). Rather, it is evil in the same sense that the ghost of Hamlet's father is evil; it tricks Ahab into creating an all consuming idol out of the white whale. Although I cannot put my finger on it, I get the ominous sense that Ahab, in indulging his obsession, is condemning himself to hell.

I think Melville agrees..maybe. Following the description of Ahab's obsession, Melville/Ishmael addresses Ahab's character directly. He offers up a pray/reflection on the captain, commenting "God help thee, old man, they thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon the heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates" (170).

Maybe this work is reminding me too much of Coolridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but I get the sense that something very dark is going on here. Take into consideration the line, "Though in many of its aspects, this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright" (164). Is anyone else getting this sense?