In Herman Melville's novel, Moby-Dick, Ahab struggle to capture the elusive white whale leads up to the moments when Ahab realizes that God is not flawless, his deep sense of isolation, and how good and evil are not absolutes. Ahab changes his ideals about himself and God in the ending of Moby-Dick through his spiritual reassessment and moral reconciliation.

At the end of the novel, Ahab finally realizes that God is not a perfect being, but instead just like Ahab, He too has huge flaws and virtues. For Ahab, one of "[God's] mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest [His] selectest champions from the kingly commons" was created in the image of God (151). Yet this "grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab" has a hamartia of monomania, thus so too does God have failings (112). For this omniscent, omnipresent, all-loving God "saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight...