Comparing and Contrasting Ahab's Wife with Moby Dick

             Upon considering the two contrasting point-of-views in Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife, the reader tends to be brought back to one vital character: Captain Ahab. While the two novels contain contrasts between the presentation of the whaling way of life and the presentation of all the characters, the narrators" presentation of Ahab says a lot about the point of view in general. In Ahab's Wife, Una continually presents Ahab as a caring husband, whereas in Moby Dick, Ishmael presents Ahab as a vengeful, mean-spirited captain. While the two narrators present Ahab in two totally different perspectives, when it all comes down to it, they both shed light on the aspect of Ahab that makes him a madman. .
             Una's view of Ahab can essentially be summed up within the first few lines of the book:.
             "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last. Yet, looking up--into the clouds--I conjure him there: his gray-white hair; his gathered brow; and the zaggy mark (I saw it when lying with him by candlelight and, also, taking our bliss on the sunny moor among curly-cup gumweed and lamb's ear.)" .
             This sentimental description provides great contrast with Ishmael's initial description of Ahab:.
             "So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood." .
             These attitudes continue throughout their respective novels. Throughout Moby Dick, however, not only does Ishmael describe Ahab as grim and dreary, but he also presents him as a madman, forever plagued by the great white whale. By the end of Ahab's Wife, Una at many points mentions that Ahab might possibly be going mad just as Kit, her first husband, did. It seems that in the conclusion of this novel, Una has all along known, but not chosen to describe, what Ishmael points out throughout Moby Dick.