Between Melville's description of the color white as one of unsettling nothingness and the meticulous description of whales/whaling that can border on the obsessive (which could mirror Ahab's mindset), Moby Dick sports a kind of thematic link that emphasizes humankind's grappling with that which they either can't/won't understand or are willing to study if it means being better able to control the unknown. Have any of you gotten the impression that Ahab—in his single-mindedness—stands as a metaphor of sorts for the individual who not only dreads the strange, but also seeks to annihilate/tame it?
