Monomaniacal Characters

Critics often describe Captain Ahab and Heathcliff as monomaniacal characters. Monomaniacal is a term defined by a psychosis of thoughts confined to one idea or group of ideas. Monomaniacal characters often obsess over a single goal, directing all their actions to accomplish it. Each character has their own backstory that develops their specific obsessions. Ahab, the captain of the Pequod, loses his leg on a whaling voyage. The loss of his leg drives him to blame the white whale for the problems of all humanity and he takes it upon himself to extract revenge. Heathcliff, an abused orphan, obsesses over hurting his abusers. Heathcliff carefully plans his actions to make sure they will negatively affect someone else. Ahab and Heathcliff are similar
Due to this growing obsession, Ahab cannot stand being away from the sea. Ahab confesses to Starbuck that he has been on the sea for forty years and “of those forty years [he] [has] not spent three ashore” (Melville. 405). At eighteen, Ahab becomes a harpooner and dedicates over half his life to the sea. However, his obsession truly begins when he requests a peg leg made of whalebone. This peg leg represents his obsession with the whale as he always has the whalebone with him. As his passion for killing Moby Dick increases, Ahab begins to have no regard for the well-being of his crew. This is apparent when he keeps his mission a secret until it is too late for the crew to back down. He even brings his own harpooners in case they refuse. With no intent of carrying out the actual mission of the Pequod, Ahab devotes the crew’s entire voyage to hunting Moby Dick, despite Starbucks protests. The obsession becomes so severe that Ahab isolates himself and devotes his time to tracking the whale on a chart. This chart presents his obsession because Ahab knows the “sets of all tides and currents,” and the “ascertained seasons for hunting [Moby Dick] in particular latitudes” (Melville. 167). Ahab becomes familiar with all the recorded encounters with Moby Dick so that he can calculate the whale’s most probable location.
Both Ahab and Heathcliff possess this characteristic. Similarly, the two share a common goal of vengeance. The goal differs in the sense that Ahab focuses his revenge on an animal while Heathcliff extracts his revenge on the people surrounding him. Though Ahab may seem careful and organized with his actions, Ahab acts mostly on impulse, especially considering they are chasing a whale that has the open sea to hide. Heathcliff plans his moves and ensures that they will have negative consequences on the people surrounding him. Another difference is the fact that only one of them accomplishes their goal. Heathcliff inflicts pain on most everyone around him up until the day he dies and therefore completes his goal of causing others pain. Unfortunately, for Ahab, he does not complete his quest of killing Moby Dick and the whale kills Ahab in the