“Ahab’s Hat Was Never Restored”: The Theme of Vanity in Moby-Dick with Reference to Ecclesiastes

Abstract

As one of the most representative works of Herman Melville, Moby-Dick is of great magnitude in the history of American literature. Ahab’s paranoid pursuit of the whale forms the pivotal tension of this work, with numerous allusions and references to biblical knowledge and images. The debacle of the whale hunting, heralded by Ahab’s lost hat as an important image, echoes the theme of vanity in the Book of Ecclesiastes, which has barely been discussed in previous studies. This paper, taking the hat of Ahab as a clue, seeks to probe into the theme of vanity in Moby-Dick with reference to Ecclesiastes reflected in the null obsession and pursuit, feeble human will and power, and doomed vanity and judgment.