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mmg's picture

Ahab's Wife

Ahab's wife makes for a fairly interesting read. When I did start reading it seemed like another tale of a woman dressed as a man and trying to make it in a men's world. I found similarities with Moby Dick and Tom Sawyer. Something in the dressing up as a man also made it Shakespearean. So for the first few pages I was drawn into the similarities it had with other novels. As for Una's character, she is interesting, to an extent. Then she falls into the stereotype of every woman that does not like her limited existence and wants to escape it. Her adventurous and slightly idealistic streak did find me relating to her. Her relationships with Kit, Giles and Harry are interesting. She 

The novel did not give me something I had not already read or come across until we reach the part where the ship is wrecked and Una turns to cannibalism. Grotesque though it was, this is the part of the novel that intrigued me. While it is easy for me to first be disgusted by their acts, I do not really know what I would have done in the same situation, never having been even remotely in such a scenario.

I realise that this book is befitting a course that is named 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', for isn't it the unlimited choices that lie in front of us, omnivore's give us power, but also causes us immense anxiety? In the novel, Kit's dementia proves the latter point. 

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