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Hao Yuanyuan(2011) raises some opinion on Ahab and aesthetic sublime in Moby Dick.. She thinks that Ahab's speech is full of enthusiasm and stimulates the sailors' passion. As a matter of fact, the vengeful plan is evil and baleful. However, all sailors in Pequod are willing to take vengeance for him, and fulfill his dream. His choleric temperament enables him to become powerful and influential. Ahab can exert his influence on the crew, and bring the feeling of the aesthetic sublime for sailors. Ahab, simply speaking, is a blasphemous, complicated and conflicting character. He struggles against more than fighting against Moby Dick. This depends on his complex characters himself. His multiple personalities result in some mysteries in Moby Dick. The discussions in this thesis mentioned above are quite significant. In Moby Dick, Burke's and Kant's views on the causes and operations of the aesthetic sublime are reflected. Ahab is a significant symbol of the aesthetic sublime in Moby Dick. Ahab can arouse the aesthetic sublime and help us comprehend Moby Dick from a new point of view.
From previous books and periodicals, many studies have made the analysis of single character from Moby Dick or comparison to other works. Although many passages have been made on the relationship of man and nature, I still have my own opinions and feelings about Moby Dick.
2.2 Description of the Main Figures in Moby Dick
There are many characteristic figures in this novel, and in this chapter I make description of the main figures in Moby Dick, Ishmael and Ahab. Ishmael, actually, I think he is the symbol of the writer-Melville. Despite he is the centrality to the story, Ishmael does not reveal much about himself to the reader. We know that he has gone to sea, and shipping aboard a whale is his version of committing suicide-he believes that men aboard a whaling ship are lost to the world. It is apparent from Ishmael's frequent digressions on a wide range of subjects from art geology, and anatomy to legal codes and literature-that he is intelligent and well educated, yet he claims that whaling ship has been “Yale College and Harvard". He seems to be a self-taught Renaissance man，good at everything but committed to nothing. Given the mythic, romantic aspects of Moby Dick, it is perhaps fitting that its narrator should be an enigma: not everything in a story so dependent on fate and the seemingly supernatural needs to make perfect sense.
Additionally, Ishmael represents the fundamental contradiction between the story of Moby Dick and its setting. Melville has created a profound and philosophically complicated tale and set it in a world of largely on educated working-class men; Ishmael, thus, seems less a real character than an instrument of the author. No one else aboard Pequod possesses the proper combination of intellect and experience to tell this story. Indeed, at times even Ishmael fails Melville' s purposes, and he disappears from the story for long stretches, replaced by dramatic dialogues and soliloquies from Ahab and other characters. This is what Ishmael represents for. Ahab, the captain in Moby Dick used to be a man of nothing but wisdom and bravery. He has spent 40 years of his Life hunting whales on sea and is intelligent in making money out of the whale-oil business. Nevertheless, on his last voyage on the Pequod to hunt the white whale, he becomes a vengeful evil. His stubbornness and monomaniacal attention of destroying the creature, as well as his flagrant defiance of the gods finally cause his downfall. From the outset, we are informed that the white whale has severed Ahab's leg and that Ahab is determined to take revenge on that creature. When the crew pledges to hunt until the end for the Great White Whale under his leadership, Ahab says,“ Death to Moby Dick", God hunt us all if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death” His deep desire to stake back at the creature is overwhelming and it seems that the sole purpose of the Pequod's voyage is to hunt down Moby Dick. He can headstrong and controls the entire ship by threat and fears. He can never establish a friendship with any person of the crew; rather, he regards them as his tools. In spite of warning against killing Moby Dick from captains of other ships, he adheres to his decision. All his madness finally brings him to the tragic ending.