Herman Melville
Moby Dick

"Moby Dick" is undoubtedly one of the most well-known and recognized novels by both the public and critics and is absolutely one of the greatest pinnacles of 19th-century American literature. Although it was initially received with indifference and even sarcasm by critics at the time of its publication (1851), the novel was "rediscovered" in 1921 thanks to a biography by the English professor Raymond Weaver, and the novel's success was such that it remains well-known today, deeply ingrained in the collective imagination of everyone, literate or not: who doesn't know, or at least hasn't heard of the mythical white whale and Captain Ahab who hunts it?

The entire story is narrated by Ishmael (that's how he calls himself, but that's not his name), a young educated but poor man who has decided to reach Nantucket, an island off the eastern coast of the USA, to embark. While traveling, he meets a harpooner (the sailor on whaling ships responsible for throwing the harpoon) Queequeg, and he decides to board with him on the whaling ship Pequod. Just after securing the job, they hear about the mysterious captain of the ship, Captain Ahab, reputed to be a gloomy and authoritarian man; Ahab is an old sea wolf who lost a leg fighting against Moby Dick, a white whale.

The Pequod, equipped with everything necessary to stay at sea for a long time, sets sail for its long hunt for the whale. In the early days, Ahab does not show himself, but his three officers Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask lead the ship towards the southern seas. When he finally appears, he first gathers the crew on deck and, after a long wait, spurs them on with a fascinating speech to hunt down the white whale, Moby Dick, the sole true objective of the journey. The sailors, dazzled by Ahab's charisma, acclaim their captain. The journey is long and exhausting: the Pequod sails the seas of the entire globe and the sailors kill several whales, fight with a giant squid, risking shipwreck multiple times. Along the journey, the Pequod crosses paths with other whalers, from whom they seek news about Moby Dick until the "Rachele" gives the captain the long-awaited news: the white whale is nearby. The hunt will last three days. When Ahab sights the whale, he is extremely nervous, argues with everyone because he fears it might escape him. It will not be so. Despite being wounded, the whale will manage to sink the Pequod; the entire crew drowns (except for Ishmael, later rescued by the "Rachele") and Ahab, entangled in the ropes of the harpoons that had wounded the whale, is dragged into the depths by Moby Dick.

The solemn struggle of man against the forces of evil finds its grandest expression in Melville's novel. Ahab and his crew are engaged in a hunt that will prove destined to fail. The sea, the quintessential place of adventure and mystery, swallows the vessel with its men, restoring the power of nature that man, in vain, tries to oppose. Man's illusory struggle takes on the character of an act of pride, which does not recognize the limits imposed by nature on his condition. The journey is the instrument through which man matures in knowledge and experience, but also gains awareness that not everything can be subjected to the laws of logic and reason.

The novel is therefore full of allegorical meanings. The proud trust in man's ability to dominate the abyss and the ocean depths is embodied in the Pequod, emblematic of technological development and the desire for dominance of American civilization. The submergence of the ship with its crew expresses a pessimistic vision of reality, while simultaneously serving as a warning to man to wisely recognize the limits of his ability to subdue nature and its mysterious forces.