How Moby-Dick or, The Whale drew on Kings
A documented line of influence: Herman Melville demonstrably engaged Jeremiah’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Kings
Jeremiah · c. 550 BCE
BibleThe influenced
Moby-Dick or, The Whale
Herman Melville · 1851
The Age of the NovelRelevance
8/10
On Moby-Dick or, The Whale’s page
- Ahab is named for a king, and Kings is the book — Peleg says it outright: "Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!"
- Melville pulls the curse along with the name: Elijah's prophet-warning, the dogs that lick the blood, the pervasive ivory that recalls King Ahab's ivory house
- Know the wicked king of Kings — the one who defied God and was annihilated — and you know how Melville's voyage has to end before the Pequod leaves port
On Kings’s page
- Melville named his captain after the wicked king of Kings on purpose — Peleg tells Ishmael, "He's Ahab, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!"
- The whole apparatus comes with the name: the prophet Elijah's warning, the dogs-licking-blood death, even Ahab's "ivory" leg echoing King Ahab's ivory house
- The Israelite king who defied God and was destroyed for it is the blueprint for the monomaniac who hunts the whale to his doom