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c h a p t e r s e v e n combat and catastrophe In the prevIous chapter, we have seen how ahab’s exemplary heroism blends with self-destructive hubris, while related questions of mortality and immortality raised by both ahab and Ishmael in the last quarter of the novel contribute to the development of important religious and philosophical ideas.we now follow the Pequod to ahab’s final disastrous confrontation with the white whale and explore its implications for the novel’s interrelated themes of theodicy and eschatology. In the combat of ahab and the whale, and the ensuing catastrophe, we witness the captain’s defeat by a creature exhibiting all the features of the archetypal chaos monster leviathan in the book of Job. ahab’s defeat effectively demonstrates the presumption and futility of his mad attempt to eliminate evil in the world and implicitly confirms yahweh’s evocation to Job of the inscrutable mysteries of the creation. In the end, ahab remains in the role of the rebellious Job of the poetic dialogues, while Ishmael plays the part of the patient, submissive Job of the folktale frame story. by the same token, the novel’s conclusion shows that the messianic zealotry and metaphysical dualism of Judeo-christian apocalyptic are ultimately self-defeating, for only Ishmael—who has accepted the mysteriously linked relationship between good and evil in the world and the need for human solidarity— survives the wreck. while the novel’s conclusion draws heavily on the biblical motifs that have governed its thematic and dramatic development, the climactic account of ahab’s combat with the whale also conforms to comparable archetypal patterns of conflict from other influential mythic traditions. Joseph fontenrose has made a comprehensive study of a common combat myth involving an order-creating hero and a chaos-creating monster in  Combat and Catastrophe five ancient cultures: greece (apollo versus python/dragon; Zeus versus typhon), canaan (baal versus Mot), Mesopotamia (Marduk versus tiamat), egypt (horus versus set), and India (Indra versus vritra). citing a broad range of examples, fontenrose has identified in this class of myths a recurrent sequence of ten basic narrative components: (1) the monstrous antagonist is of divine origin, with a primordial father or mother; (2) it has a distinctive habitation, often in a body of water; (3) it has an extraordinary appearance, often marked by a huge size, and typically takes the form of a snake, lizard, crocodile, or fish; (4) it shows a vicious nature, making war in its particular domain; (5) it has conspired against heaven, sometimes in quest of world rule; (6) the god or hero as divine champion appears to face the monstrous antagonist; (7) the champion goes out to fight his formidable adversary; (8) the champion nearly loses the battle against his adversary; (9) the monstrous antagonist is eventually outwitted or deceived and then destroyed; (10) the champion disposes of the body of his antagonist and celebrates his victory.1 It is immediately apparent that Moby-Dick conforms to many of these mythic components, especially in the legendary characterization of its cetacean monster, with its huge size, oceanic domain, ostensibly vicious nature, and seemingly omnipotent power. but the mythic parallels go awry with the appearance of the hero to fight the monster for ahab is hardly a virtuous exemplar of moral heroism. unlike the archetypal pattern of the hero’s ultimate victory over the monster, moreover, Melville’s novel ends with ahab’s defeat. In effect, the polarity of order and chaos, good and evil, in the contest between hero and monster is here replaced by the moral ambiguity of both the enraged american whaling captain and his (allegedly) vindictive monstrous antagonist. The old testament version of the combat myth postulated yahweh as the exclusive warrior-champion who defeated the primordial antagonist leviathan; hence captain ahab, as a presumptuous faustian overreacher, must be defeated.2 on the other hand, ahab’s messianic mission is fueled partly by legitimate outrage at his own—and humanity’s—gratuitous suffering, and his death accordingly bears traces of a christlike aura of crucifixion. The divergence of ahab’s story from the traditional combat myth of order-creating hero and chaos-creating monster is partly explained by the merging in Melville’s novel of the mythic model of primordial combat with another influential mythic tradition. neil forsyth in The old Enemy: Satan and the combat Myth presents this pattern as featuring a “satanic”adversary, or oppositional figure, in combat with...

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