Moby-Dick 2: Ahab's Revenge

By Jeff Webb

So, my American Literature class just finished reading—or Sparknoting, for some—Herman Melville’s _Moby-Dick_. While I found the novel to be quite the classic and well-deserving of its “Great American Novel” reputation, I think it did leave something to be desired. Then it hit me: the book needs a sequel.

Picture this: the last time we saw Ahab, he was being pulled down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, tangled up in some lines attached to the Whale. We assume he dies, but what if he doesn’t?

Thus, the book’s sequel, tentatively titled _Moby-Dick 2: Ahab’s Revenge_. It begins with a legless, old man being washed up on some remote Pacific island. He is unconscious and stumbled upon by some of the island’s natives. They take him and nurse him back to health.

It is then that Ahab tells them the tale of Moby-Dick, how the Whale possesses supernatural powers, how he seeks revenge on it. He recounts how he survived the events of the first book, that he was being pulled down, but he managed to cut himself loose and the tide must have carried him to this island.

Ahab befriends the islanders, and maybe, just maybe, he might develop a romance with one of the women. However, his passion for revenge and the White Whale’s blubber overrides his want of a peaceful life. He convinces the islanders to help him construct a boat out of the island’s trees, and then he puts together a crew. During the course of this, too, he fashions himself a new leg out of a tree branch (and, if Robert Rodriguez were filming this, Ahab might go so far as to turn this branch into some sort of Gatling gun).

After a heartfelt goodbye with his romantic interest on the island’s shore, Ahab sets sail once again, seeking revenge upon Moby-Dick.

Just imagine it, though. The woman asks him, standing there in the sunrise, the boat rocking back and forth on the ocean, she asks and pleads, “Ahab, why do you have to do this? Stay here and be happy.”

Ahab, the most sentimental we’ll ever see him, kisses her face and says, “It’s what I have to do. Billions of years have led to this moment. I’m going to kill the Whale.”

Thus ends Act 1 of _Moby-Dick 2: Ahab’s Revenge_.

Act 2 could see Ahab return to his old self, captain and dictator of the ship. It could also lend for some interesting—and, at times, humorous—events, as Ahab will be working with a ragtag team of islanders who have never manned a whaling vessel before. Unlike the experienced Starbuck or Stubb, Ahab must not only lead these men, but he must also teach the basics of maritime etiquette. All the while, they steadily get closer and closer to Moby-Dick.

Act 3 could conclude the novel with an epic fifty-page showdown between Ahab and the Whale. This time, instead of letting the Whale ram the ship, Ahab turns the ship toward the Whale, and the two crash in a head-on collision. The ship—it’s only made of trees, remember?—breaks apart and men fall into the ocean, drowning. Ahab treads water as the Whale comes toward him, opening its mouth, and, like Jonah, swallowing Ahab whole.

However, inside the Whale, Ahab sees this as a perfect opportunity for victory. He somehow makes his way to the heart, stabs it with his harpoon, then he claws his way out as Moby-Dick finally perishes. Ahab has, at last, achieved his revenge.

The novel can end with a little epilogue, detailing that Ahab returns home to Nantucket. After his voyage with the Pequod and then his time on the island and his voyage with the islanders, Ahab had been at sea for nearly five or six years. He was thought dead, and, as such, his wife has moved on, marrying another man.

Ahab, also, finds that a young man named Ishmael had survived the Pequod endeavor and told everyone the story about his madness, thus ending any whaling company ever wanting to hire Ahab as a captain. He may have killed the White Whale, but, in doing so, he has garnered a reputation as a madman, and nobody wants to entrust a ship to a madman.

Thus, we end with Ahab, old and alone, drinking in a bar and telling stories of his glory days to anybody that will listen. His life and love had always been at sea, but now he can never go back. He must end his poor, miserable life on land.

The question becomes this: Ahab has gotten his revenge, but at what cost?

Tell me you don’t want to read that book.