"Ahab leaned over the side, and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel-forbidding-now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop" (405).
Ahab, once a dominant and mean character, is no more. While who the true leader of the ship is right now is ambiguous, Ahab seems to feel that as if the sea is his mother and his home which comforts him and cry with him. What wealth, as seen in the quote, does Ahab's tear contain? What is the meaning of Ahab crying and seeking comfort from the sea?
2.
"A gentle joyousness-a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale" (409).
Why is Melville using "joyousness" to describe the whale while he also depicted the sea's sobbing "joyously" in the previous chapter? Is he saying that in Ahab's mind, the whale equals the sea? Since the only thing Ahab has in his mind is to capture the whale, can we say that everything else is unimportant to him, thus his whole world (the sea) is simply Moby-Dick?
3.
"His ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter" (417).
Eventually Ahab got wounded in the capture of Moby Dick, but he said "But even with a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no living bone of mine one jot more me, than this dead one that's lost." Why does this sacrifice mean so much to Ahab? What other sacrifices did he make throughout the journey? Are they worth the prize?
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