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Comparing Scarlet Letter And Moby Dick

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is an American Gothic novel that tells the story of a young puritan woman, Hester Prynne, who committed adultery with the town’s younger reverend, Arthur Dimmesdale, and is forced to endure the punishment for it. When Hester Prynne’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, finds out that Prynne has done this, he becomes fascinated with finding out who the father of the illegitimate child is, and how he can get revenge on the man. Another American Gothic novel, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, tells of a group of men that thought they had set out to sea as whalers, but ended up going on a mission to appease Captain Ahab’s wrath towards the white whale that consumed his leg. Since they are both men of poor character, …show more content…

He has spent a great amount of time sailing the sea looking for Moby Dick. He is willing to do whatever it takes to kill the great white whale that took his leg from him. He even recognizes how extreme his revenge is, but wants it so bad that he is willing to ignore any other obstacles that may be in his way. In addition to this, Captain Ahab also has an obsession with his desire to kill Moby Dick. The crew starts out on a planned route for their sea voyage, but as they go along, Captain Ahab continually commands the crew to keep traveling and searching for Moby-Dick. Captain Ahab ends up taking his crew to Antarctica in icy, perilous waters. Captain Ahab also makes some of the members of his crew make a blood oath to kill Moby-Dick. This demonstrates how much Captain Ahab wanted to kill the great white whale and the extents he is willing to go to in order to appease his obsession. Throughout the whole sea voyage, Captain Ahab refuses to listen to anyone’s thoughts about his actions and only focuses on killing Moby-Dick. Lastly, Captain Ahab also exemplifies a very selfish attitude. This attitude is shown when Ahab continues sailing, in spite of the harm that it could possibly bring to his crew. Ahab carries his crew through extreme weather conditions, such as storms and freezing temperatures, and refuses to turn around. Many of the men could have been harmed or killed by such conditions,

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