Moby-Dick Characters: Complete Analysis

Ishmael is our narrator, a wanderer who decides to sign up for a whaling voyage. Captain Ahab is the peg-legged captain obsessed with killing Moby Dick, the white whale that bit off his leg. Queequeg is Ishmael's harpooner friend, a tattooed Pacific Islander prince. Starbuck is the first mate who sees that Ahab's obsession will kill them all but can't stop it. Moby Dick himself barely appears but looms over everything—he's both a real whale and a symbol of nature's indifference to human desires.