Because ultimately all our classics take us through the physical into the spiritual. These two, physical and spiritual, are not separate. Captain Ahab, a proud, imposing, deeply troubled thinking man ignores the messages sent to him over and over not to fight against that which is so much more powerful than man -- what is this but what people called God?
Melville does not shy away from this word -- and pursues Moby Dick, the white whale no one has overcome. Like the old woman who swallowed a fly, and then a bird, a cat, a dog, a horse -- Ahab died, of course.
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