Which best explains why melville begins chapter 28 of mobydick with a description of ahab’s physical absence above the ship’s hatches for several days?

to show that ahab has no real command over his ship
to make ahab’s eventual appearance on deck more dramatic
to show that ahab is no longer interested in the whale hunt
to make ahab’s eventual appearance on deck predictable

Melville begins Chapter 28 of Moby Di-ck with a description of Ahab’s physical absence above the ship’s hatches for several days to make Ahab’s eventual appearance on deck more dramatic.

One of the important theme in the novel “Moby Di-ck” is about the relationship between nature and man. The novel is about a man, Ahab, who goes out in the natural world to disturb the balance of nature by killing the animals. Though at the end of the novel, it is the nature who remains unchanged and the man has to witness a failure.  Ahab had a strong belief in the fate because of which he thinks that it is in his destiny to slay down the whale. The desire for revenge exists stands secondary for him. He combines his egoism with the feeling of revenge and moves on to destroy the whale. He ignores the prophecies about the destruction that will cause to his ship and himself if he moved on. In the end, he falls prey to his own destruction causing his identity to extinct.

chapter i -- paris: september, 1792

a surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

during the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that france had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity.

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