Response to Portraits of the Young Man Richard Chase

In the passage from Herman Melville: Critical Study , Richard Chase asserts that the theme of Melville’s first five books is the education of the young man. In Moby-Dick, obviously, this theme applies to Ishmael. If I understand correctly, Chase argues that such a theme wasn’t so trivial in the time and culture that Melville had lived in because, according to Chase, tradition and culture were not yet defined and didn’t yet prove successful.

To emphasize the importance of education, Chase compares Ishmael’s education with Ahab’s lack of (I think): “We are all Ishmael; but without Ishmael’s education, we become not Bulkington the democratic hero, but Ahab, the exploiter whose exploitation is all of himself and his fellows” (41). I find this argument a bit strange; true, Ahab is an exploiter and true, Ishmael is being educated throughout the book, but I find it hard to believe that Ahab wasn’t educated as a young man similarly to Ishmael. I believe that both, being in the business of whaling, ships and sailing, received the same education. Ahab might have lost it somewhere along the way due to some harsh circumstances but it’s just Ishmael’s luck to be educated not to be like Ahab. This is not to say, though, that Ahab wasn’t educated