NCHS AP English Language

The Sphynx (Chris Fitzer)

The Sphinx, which derrives from Greek word "to strangle or bind," is seeh a a lion with the head of a woman, the wings of an eagle, and the tail of a serpent or dragon. She is a trickster whop brings devastation upon a city, such as Thebes, when she guards the city preventing anyone from entering or exiting the gates until her riddle is answered. This forces the people of the city to die from the starvation from the lack of trade. She, with the head of a human, cannibalizes the humans who incorrectly answers the riddle. This sphinx is a "plague" upon the city and an obstacle for those who are intending to enter the city. The sphinx is revered as intellegent, manipulative, and surreptitious. She is considered to be the basis of perversion in the female sex. When Ahab climbs aboard the deck after the decapitation of the whale, he speaks to it regarding it as the shinx of the seas. It was the first obstacle to pass in his journey deeper into the vastness of the sea. It guards the secrets of the deepest places in the oceans and holds the well-kept secrets of this watery-world. It guards this "city" where many have perished by drowning in its depths, just as the true sphinx's holds captive a city of dying people. This decapitated head seems to be capable of talking like the woman's head of a sphinx. Ahab, most likely knowledgeable in that the whale will not respond, is simply expressing this soliloquy to the whale only because it is the topic of his rant. Ahab intends to be Oedipus, the one capable of solving the riddle of the sphinx. If Ahab is able to understand the reasons behind whales actions, he will unlock the city, the depths of the ocean. From there he can finally fulfill his revenge and kill Moby Dick.
In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus flees Corinth after hearing the prophesy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. While he intends to avoid this doom, by solving the riddle, getting rid of the sphinx, and saving Thebes, he actually ends up fulfilling the prophesy when he kills his father on the road and marries his mother, Jocasta, the king of Thebes. In that same sense, Ahab leaves Nantucket after hearing the prophesy from Elijah that Ahab will die on this voyage. Following the Oedipodian plot structure, by killing the whale and unlocking the gates of the ocean Ahab too will end up fulfilling the prophesy. Thusly he will die!

posted by NCHS AP English Language III @ 1:48 PM