SOURCE: “The Suicidal Psycho-Logics of Moby-Dick,” in Youth Suicide Prevention: Lessons from Literature, edited by Sara Munson Deats and Lagretta Tallent Lenker, Insight Books, 1989, pp. 15-47.

In the following excerpt, Shneidman offers a psychological portrait of Ahab and characterizes his relationship to Moby-Dick as “a classical illustration of the traditional psychoanalytical position of suicide.”

Case History Data

From the first exciting moment that one looks at Moby-Dick as logic, it is startlingly clear that the book, as a living entity, and Melville-Ishmael, as driving intellects, have rich and textured ways of thinking that are consistent with and advance the main psychological trust and message of the book. After dramatically telling us who the logician is—“Call me Ishmael”—Melville begins the journey with an extended syllogism, called a sorites. First, he summarizes the argument in a rather straightforward and beguiling fashion:

Some years ago—never mind how long...