In the novel Moby Dick, Melville poses through his narrator, Ishmael,, many questions that seem to have no answer. Some of these questions are: Can science help man better understand his surroundings? Can art or literature? Is there a God? If God exists, is He merciful or cruel? Unfortunately for Ishmael, and, humans in general, these questions cannot, and, according to the novel, should not be answered. For Ahab, the pursuit of these answers led to destruction and death.
             One of the central themes of the novel is whether or not science can be used to help man understand the world around him. Ishmael attempts to do this by organizing and compulsively defending the world around him through science. This can most easily be seen in the chapter, 'Cetology'. Many pages of the novel are devoted to the classification and organization of whales according to their genus and species names. He gives up in the end, calling his 'draught of a draught' something that he will never be able to fully understand. This suggests that after all of his work, it is something that is not only beyond his grasp, but also beyond what most people can understand.
             Art also proves to be ineffective at allowing man to understand the world. The chapters that survey visual depictions of whales demonstrate the cultural ubiquity of whales. Ishmael questions whether it is possible to create an object that conveys the reality and the spirit of the whale and its hunters. The few engravings and paintings that Ishmael praises seem to be effective because they offer dramatic but not necessarily realistic scenes and convey some of the terror involved in a close encounter with a whale. Ishmael notes that man has not yet been able to completely capture the essence of the elusive whale. Whales in these pictures are seen as both mighty and malicious, which suggests that art is also unreliable in helping man answer the question, "Can science or art help ma...