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Captain Ahab
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Captain Ahab

fictional character
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Article History

Captain Ahab, fictional character, a one-legged captain of the whaling vessel Pequod in the novel Moby Dick (1851), by Herman Melville. From the time that his leg is bitten off by the huge white whale called Moby Dick, Captain Ahab monomaniacally pursues his elusive nemesis. Ahab’s obsession with killing Moby Dick brings about his own death as well as those of all but one of his crew members—“Ishmael,” the novel’s narrator.

This article was most recently revised and updated by J.E. Luebering.