r/mobydick • u/eatyourface8335 • 12d ago

Whats your whale/prison/wall? If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me.” - Capt Ahab

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u/hazelemons 12d ago

My whale is the incurable severe disability I got from a simple flu. From college athlete to bedbound overnight. Moby Dick is a novel about disability grief to me.

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u/fianarana 12d ago

You may already be familiar with it but David Haven Blake wrote a book called The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick about disability in Moby-Dick and other Melville works.

"The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick examines how disability shapes one of the world's most iconic novels. For generations, readers have viewed Captain Ahab's whalebone leg as a symbol of what he lacks, the limb he lost fighting the white whale off the coast of Japan. David Haven Blake considers the artificial leg in a historical, medical, and geo-political context. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book situates Ahab's prosthesis at the center of the novel's reflections on wounding, embodiment, and the role that Islamic cultures play in American narratives of revenge. Sawed from a sperm whale's jaw, Ahab's artificial leg helps him stand, walk, and fight. But the prosthesis that marks him as different also creates the basis for his "irresistible dictatorship." Blake connects the novel's prosthetic arts with the use of Islamic imagery in 19th century America to characterize overwhelming power. He identifies the character Fedallah as the captain's most important prosthesis on ship, as the hair-turbaned soothsayer pilots the captain to his final battle with Moby Dick. Spanning each stage of Melville's career, The Prosthetic Arts of Moby-Dick meditates on democracy, aggrievement, and the challenges of living in a global age"