Yes. A character in a story is any person/entity/being who has any role or influence over the story. So even though it is just a whale, and the whale doesn't speak, the whale
…is actually a major character, even though it has no parts. This tends to be a trick question that teachers will ask. They will choose an animal or a character outside the story, perhaps in the time span prior to the setting of the story, and ask you if they are a character. The correct answer is usually yes, since even though they are not an ordinary character, they may play a major role in the story. If a story is about someone who lived a life in honor of their deceased parents, then it would be correct to call the parents characters in the story, since the memory and legacy of them influences the story. In Moby Dick, you could say the whale was an unwilling character in the story, since the story was about one man's obsession with the whale. (MORE)