Is Ahab autistic?

No... why would you come to that conclusion?
He's a warm, family man who had his hand forced by the unforgiving economic and social climate of his time.

What's autistic about him? Have you even read the book? Or are you just reacting the literary tropes about his character, that he was driven mad by revenge?

>>8996290
no, but herman melville was

>>8996296
>muh moby dick has to pay for what he has done
But hes just an animal blindly following his instincts
>REEEEEEEEEEE

>>8996309
Definitely not. Read Bartleby again. The character is pretty close to being autistic and the narrator is baffled by his behavior. If Mellville himself were autistic, I don't think he'd be able to write from the perspective of someone who doesn't understand autists.

>>8996290
No, he is just a maniac. An autist would be completely insecure about his godawful retarded plan.

>>8996290
autist is thrown around unfairly idiotically. Ahab is obviously too emotional and passionate to be autistic, autism is nothing so glamorous as Ahab.

Artists cannot be autistic because art is essentially about muh feels and autists don't have that much muh feels.

>>8996352
That's one of my favorite short stories, I've read it at university.
Recently bought "Billy Budd" and the story is also in this book. I think I'm going to reread it.

>>8996366
Read Omoo, especially if you want to see what was going on Melville's mind leading up to Moby-Dick.

>>8996290
Every character is kinda autistic.

>MUH WHALES
>WHALE HUNTING IS OKAY!!!!
>FUCKING MOBY DICK MUST PAY FOR THIS

>>8996473
You haven't read the book bra

The only autistic character is Pip.

>>8996473
The didactic sections about whaling were there to help laypeople understand something that they otherwise wouldn't. This book was written in a time before the internet, or tv, or even magazines. Writing Moby-Dick in a world that didn't already have Moby-Dick meant having to explain to people what the fuck you were talking about. In 2017 you can read an abridged version with all the whaling stuff cut out and, yeah, then it does seem like everyone in the book is kind of crazy. But in the context of the entire book, the living breathing industry and all its savagery, it makes more sense.

>>8996290

Ahab is a misunderstood character I feel

the truth is he didn't really care about revenge nor was he obsessive
it doesn't make any darn sense just think about it
the whale doesn't even care about him why would he care about it that much?
Ahab just knew that he had nothing else to do with his miserable life and he had the crew and the ship pretty much everything he needed already so he was really just following the path of least resistance and if it went wrong he didn't have much to live for anyway

>>8996625

This is all wrong.

That Moby Dick has an element of revenge is entirely coincidental. The overarching element is fear.

I will explain as follows. The taking of Ahab's leg by Moby Dick is a *perceived* injustice - that is what matters. Ahab's pursuit revolves around fear - fear that injustice will not be met with justice, fear that Moby Dick will not pay for its perceived crime.

Ahab's thirst for justice is embodied in a lineof Nietzsche's: "to take one’s cause seriously enough not to spare men." Thus, for Ahab, it is neither a waste nor a crime to hunt Moby Dick to the ends of the Earth.`

>>8996365
>autistic people don't feel emotions

Fuck, you're retarded...

>>8996679
see
>>8996318

>>8996365
>What is Autistic Rage

>>8996739
I think Ahab knows the whale is an animal, but he sees it as an agent of a universe out to get him. He's been injured by Creation and wants to injure it back. "I'd strike the sun if it insulted me," remember?

So I do think it's a matter of fear, as that poster said, but it's almost a cosmic fear. Ahab is worried that the universe can grind him up and spit him out and there's nothing he can do about it. He hunts Moby-Dick because he wants to prove he CAN do something about it, that he can make the universe care about him, even if only by poking it in the eye.

It's almost Lovecraftian, now that I think on it.