NCHS AP English Language

Ahab's Soliloquy (Chris Fitzer)

Monomania is a severe form of paranoia in which the paranoid one has only one idea or fear. Emotional monomania is when the patient is seriously obsessed with only one thought or other thoughts relating to that one. These psychological paranoias can evolve to such a form that the patient has constant delirious visions of the one idea they are focused on. A commonly known form of monomania is Narcissism*, which is a personality disorder involving extreme vanity and total self-absorption. Many pyschiatrists believe that we are each born with our on monomaniac tendencies, just some of us are able to balance our lives better than others. For most people their obsession resides in their profession, as in Ahab's case. Ahab has an obvious case of monomania, in that all of his energy is focused into the capture and murder of Moby Dick, the whale that injured him. The revenge that Ahab seeks has engulfed his every move, turning him into a monomaniac. His soliloquy peaks at the statement "What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, Ill do!" In that instance, Ahab gives into his monomania, and admits to the devilish madness that now controls him ["I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened"]. He becomes completely submissive to this desire to murder this illustrious white whale. But Ahab is not the only monomaniac aboard the Pequod. Ishmael had an insatiable desire the sail the seas, an obsession for adventure. This obsession is what drove him to choose this ship so that he could fulfill his monmaniac desires.

*Narcissism is the one monomaniac quality that scientists such as Freud believe that all humans are born with. For we all seem to look out for ourselves first, and for some of us we our one and only priority.

posted by NCHS AP English Language III @ 9:02 PM