Word for the Wise, July 31

[Uadzit]

Topic: Ishmael & Ahab

The Melville Marathon begins at noon today in Mystic, Connecticut and runs straight through until noon tomorrow. What's the Melville Marathon? It's a read-aloud of all 135 chapters of Herman Melville's classic Moby-d**k.

The rich and symbol-laden tale of the whale, the obsessed sea captain, and the doomed crew is still studied today; today we study one of Melville's most compelling creations: Captain Ahab.

Our look at Ahab begins with a nod to the narrator, who famously invites the reader to call him Ishmael. Like his namesake, the Biblical Ishmael, Melville's fictional Ishmael is an outsider.

Like Ishmael, the name of the Captain has its genesis in the Bible. According to the first book of Kings, Ahab, husband of Jezebel, was guilty of covetousness, murder, and pagan worship. Melville's latter-day version was no saint either: his Ahab is characterized by an obsessive and unholy quest for vengeance upon the whale who had taken his leg. That quest results in the death of all his crew (save the outcast Ishmael); it also leads to the adoption of the metaphoric Ahab as a byword for anyone notable for a fanatical, monomaniacal pursuit of a goal.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.  

[dantes_way]

Let us not forget that the character Starbuck, the harpooner who saw the whale as his to exploit for profit, is the inspiration for the name of that coffee house franchise, Starbucks, which seems to feel the need to exploit our love/need for caffeine for profit. Ironic, eh?

Call me Ishmael and give me a Java Chip Frappachino before I go monomaniacal like Ahab! pirate