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Moby-Dick(Herman Melville),.“Moby Dick”by William Ellery Sedgwick,in Herman Melville: The Tragedy of Mind (1944)IntroductionWilliam Ellery Sedgwick sees Ahab’s quest for truth as a“tragedy of mind,” contrasting Ahab’s myopic gaze withIshmael’s panoramic vision of the world. As Sedgwick argues,Ishmael’s heroic fate lies in the way he confronts and resolveshis inner conflicts, ultimately embracing a “spiritual balance”he finds along the journey.fAhab pursues the truth as the champion of man, leaving behindhim all traditional conclusions, all common assumptions, all codesand creeds and articles of faith. Although the universe of sea andsky opens around him an appalling abyss, and although the abyssseems the visible apprehension of his mind that the truth will provethat there is no truth, still he sails on. He will at any rate have theuniverse show its cards, so that a man may know how it stands withhim, whether or not there is anything beyond himself to which he canSedgwick, William Ellery. “Moby Dick.” Herman Melville: The Tragedy of Mind.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1944. 82–136.141