Question

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dic is an American classic filled with symbolic meaning. One of the most important symbols in the story is the white whale Moby-Dic. There are various interpretations of what the whale represents. Based on the following excerpt, what is one interpretation of Moby-Dic as a symbol in the novel?

And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way; and from his body being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from the bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as it were; and while the other boats involuntarily paused, as before a quick crisis impossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and helpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seized the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it from its gripe. As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him; the frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain, and locked themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the two floating wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew at the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold fast to the oars to lash them across.

A.
the desperation of a trapped animal
B.
the uncontrollable power of nature
C.
the difference between mankind and wildlife
D.
the conquering impulse of mankind

Answer 1

The correct answer should be b

Answer 2

The correct option is B: the uncontrollable power of nature.

We can perceive how the author is trying to show us how human beings have the tools and the technology and, besides, the intelligence to capture wild animals, but what they do not seem to understand is that in many occasions they underestimate the power of nature. In this case, they are not aware of the power of the whale.

For the author the symbolism is clear: what is meant to be free, it should stay that way.