What should we learn from the statementI'd strike the sun if it insulted me?

Answer 1

"Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me."

This is declared by Captain Ahab of Moby Dick on Chapter Thirty Six which is subtitled; The Quarter Deck. Young Starbuck has questioned Ahab's seeming unquenchable thirst for vengeance and has made the practical point that killing the white whale known as Moby Dick would not be very profitable at the market back in Nantucket. Ahab seeks to instruct young Starbuck in the value of pride and the need to push away the "walls" of a world that measures worth by money alone and the confines of such economics that imprison us all. He explains to Starbuck that it is what we keep in our hearts that is of real worth. Starbuck replies by saying;

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!...that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."

It is here where Ahab explains the importance of pushing past the walls that imprison us and before asserting he would strike the sun if it insulted him, Ahab makes this clear:

"If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me."

This is shortly followed by the quote in question. It is as Ahab says the in the natural jealousies of people that dictate why we act the way we do. Ahab not only hates this white whale he calls Moby Dick, he also admires the creatures strength and will and in and endeavor to match that strength and will he explains to Starbuck he would strike the sun if it insulted him. What is to be learned? Jealousy undoes us all as it did the Captain Ahab by the end of Moby Dick. The white whale survived just as the sun would were we to strike it. The futility of such endeavors is also what makes people so compelling and why people still read Moby Dick today. As Balise Pasquale once said;

"When the universe comes to destroy man, man will still be nobler than that which tries to destroy him, because in his death man knows he is dying and of its victory, the universe knows absolutely nothing."