Seminari St. Yoh. Berkhmans
English Corner – Book Corner
This book is one of the famous classical books that has been published hundreds of times since it was written by Herman Melville in the 1800s.
It tells about an ordinary sailor named Ishmael who wanted to join whale hunting. Together with his friend, Queequeeq, he joined a whaleship called Pequod, with Ahad as the captain.
Ahad once hunted Moby Dick, a white whale monster. The whale took one of his legs, which made him hate the monster the rest of his life.
The whole story actually talks about how Ahad tried to take revenge on the beast, but finally ended up in a tragedy.
In the final end, only Ishmael was still alive. Others went down into the deep ocean together with the ship.
When reading this book, I can feel how powerful but, at the same time destructive, revenge is.
Revenge is irrational, and only makes you blind. You cannot see anything clearly. You cannot even judge yourself and your surroundings wisely enough to make your life better.
People can only see how destructive revenge is when finally life is broken: the relationship is broken, communication is broken, and everything is broken.
This happened to Ahad and influenced so many people.
Revenge is more fierce than the monster, Moby Dick, which lives in the human heart.
At the end of the day, revenge can only be overcome by forgiveness, not by violence.
Moby Dick, was a white monster which was destructive and scary. There is, however, another monster, dark, unseen, that might swim in the ocean of human hearts.
(Nani Songkares)
