Please explain "tragic sense" in relation to Moby Dick.

If one uses "tragic" and "Moby Dick" in the same sentence then he should be talking about Ahab. Ahab first appears to speak to his crew, he reveals their true and only goal, hunting Moby Dick. Many of the crew members have heard of Moby Dick and know how dangerous he is. Starbuck tells Ahab that how foolish it is to chase after Moby Dick. However Ahab does not listen to him at all and insists that they will go forward with their hunt of the great white whale. Although Starbuck is below Ahab in terms of authority, he is giving some great and logical advice. It is probably his revenge which drives him to pay back the whale for eating his leg. Others say it is his inability to forgive, which also can be seen in his interactions with other crew members. In fact knowing the result of the story, it makes all the sense in the world. Just like a commander telling his soldiers to go and die. But not like Atatürk ordering soldiers to “not to fight but die”, this is different. Ahab leading himself and his crew to death, blindly.

We learn later in the story that Ahab was struck by lighting, which explains his scar. We also knew that Moby Dick had eaten his leg before. This makes twice that Ahab has been severely injured by things formed in nature. Most people may choose to not ever come close to these things again, but his response is again defiance against sense and in this case against nature. We see later that a big storm comes, and instead of trying to move the ship or get away he decides to go right ahead through the storm. Here he is basically saying that he does not care what nature is telling him or what it has done to him before.

Ahab does not only challenge the nature but also authority of God. He told his crew that whoever catches the whale will receive a gold. Then he nails this gold up onto the post, mocking the crucifixion of Jesus. We can also consider the sermon in the beginning of the story. Jonah disobeyed God and so was swallowed by a whale as punishment. Ahab continued to challenge God and his practices and he paid it in a tragically similar way to Jonah.

Defiance is captain Ahab's most consistent flaw and also a major theme of the story. It is his cause for going against the whale, and in turn going against nature and God. Maybe he should have read the bible and realized, you can never win against a whale.