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Captain Ahab's Loss Of Innocence In The Scarlet Letter

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In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Roger Chillingworth displays evil traits while trying to get revenge on his wife’s lover. Another classic American novel, Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, features Captain Ahab trying his best to seek revenge on the gargantuan whale that took his leg. Roger Chillingworth and Captain Ahab are both evil characters trying to get revenge with many differences such as their reason for revenge, their way of torture, and the help they have on the way to their vengeance. Roger Chillingworth is seeking revenge on Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale for stealing his wife. Chillingworth is upset and wants revenge because his wife left him for another man. He undergoes an emotional loss of his wife, causing him to go insane. His emotional loss of love drives him to take action. When seeking revenge, he wants to keep Dimmesdale alive to make him live with his guilt. This is torturous …show more content…

This is captain Ahab’s life obsession to attack and execute Moby Dick. Captain Ahab wants revenge over the loss of his leg. This physical loss is the initial event that causes his life obsession of killing Moby Dick. Captain Ahab’s life is captivated by the, “death of Moby Dick”, which is his ship, The Pequod’s, motto. He is willing to give away precious gold just to kill Moby Dick to get revenge for his absent leg. He went to extremes and put his crew in ample amount of danger for the gigantic white whale’s death, just for his own wrath. Ahab has a whole crew to help him with his vengeance on Moby Dick. He makes absolutely insane decisions to force his crew into danger they should not have been in. Because of this in their final spotting of Moby Dick every crewmember dies except Ishmael, just because of Ahab’s decisions to chase the large whale instead of killing many whales for profit. Their crew has no choice but to follow the captain’s orders to chase and kill Moby Dick in which they fail to

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