Moby Dick by Herman Melville has quite possibly had the greatest impact on my life, throughout all my years of reading (though I am still young, and didn't finish too many books as a teenager!). First and foremost, and almost immediately from the get-go, Melville confronts a startlingly uncomfortable element of human nature, an exhilarating urge that is void within many Moderns. This being, the need to confront the essentials and absolutes of life: absolute evil, absolute truth, absolute salvation. These elements of life are what formulates a sense of purpose, a sense that absolutists would argue is what connects spiritually gifted individuals with the natural order of the universe. On one hand, Moby Dick is narrated through the writing of a young man who is truly lost, with "nothing for him on shore". He takes to the Sea because he cannot tolerate the alternative. The man, Ishmael, may be fairly classified as a Nihilist, not  set on defending any particular moral or truth claim. He is an explorer; he is searching. The Sea, with its unbounding power and mysterious creatures, both reaffirms a sense of chaotic disorientation, and at the same time endows upon him a certain respect for the power of unknown forces. One such force, is the spirit of his Captain, Ahab. A character so famous so as to not need an introduction, the morals of Captain Ahab are ambiguous. "All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad", says Ishmael, referring to his captain. As humans we can perfect the art of carrying out a task, without a clear idea of why. Often, 'why' cannot be put into words, only intelligable through the innate and absolute desire for salvation, truth, and glory,, ends that cannot be quantified or understood rationally.