Quote 4
"Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!" (135.58)
Some of these lines also get quoted in Star Trek II! Ahab’s declaration that he’s going to keep battling the whale with all his strength, even after he knows he’s doomed, has the same significance in both Star Trek and in Moby-Dick.
Khan goes after Kirk for the same reason Ahab goes after the White Whale: because he hates him, not because it’s a glorious quest or even because he wants to win. Khan and Ahab both do want to win, of course, but nourishing their own revenge is more important than mere victory.
Quote 5
Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most South-Sea-men’s cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck, exclaimed: "There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod. – On deck!" (109.15)
As the novel moves toward its fateful conclusion, Ahab finally says the very thing that we (and Starbuck) have been worried about: that he’s setting himself up in opposition to God. It’s too bad Ahab wasn’t there to hear Father Mapple’s sermon about Jonah and how obeying God means disobeying yourself.
Quote 6
"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. (132.17)
Even Captain Ahab himself doesn’t really understand what’s driving him. Is he pressed onward by his own desires? By God’s decisions? After all, if you believe in God, then isn’t God responsible, directly or indirectly, for everything everyone does? And, if so, does that mean nobody is responsible for their own actions? Surely not. But Ahab doesn’t seem to be trying to claim that he isn’t responsible for what he does—he seems scared that he might not be.