Captain Ahab is a fictional character and one of the protagonists in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). He is the
Melville … See more

Ahab was named by his insane, widowed mother, who died when he was twelve months old. The etymology of the name Ahab derives from the Hebrew, meaning "father's brother" as cited in Strong's Concordan… See more

According to Melville biographer Leon Howard, "Ahab is a Shakespearean tragic hero, created according to the Coleridgean formula." The creation of Ahab, who apparently does not derive from any captain Mel… See more

Ahab's character is shaped by mythic and literary patterns that overlap and reinforce each other in such a complementary way that "the apparent irony of one allusion is frequently the truth of another." For instance, al… See more