What does the White Whale symbolize in Moby-Dick?

The whale in Moby Dick simply symbolizes a whale

Question: What does the White Whale symbolize in Moby-Dick?
Position‹3 of 3: The whale in Moby Dick does not represent anything singularly
Argument: The whale in Moby Dick simply symbolizes a whale

Melville does not give the White Whale any specific meaning. Only the characters ascribe meaning. We can assume there is no symbolism for the whale at all, as there are moments within the novel that further emphasize how not everything has meaning.

The argument

The White Whale is just that–a white whale. Although almost every single character in the novel propounds their own meaning for the whale, Melville never explicitly defines the whale. To Ahab, the whale is the sum of all evil in the world; the whale is malicious and divinely evil. For a character like Queequeg or one of the other harpooners, the whale is simply just another whale. This same idea is seen in Chapter 99, "The Doubloon," as each character expounds their personal meaning of the doubloon that Ahab uses to motivate his crew to search for the whale. But, of course, the coin is simply a coin. In fact, one line in this chapter presents the significance of ascribing meaning to nothing: "And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher..." In this line, Melville presents what is almost a thesis of sorts for the symbolism of the novel. Without being able to place or posit meaning onto something, that very thing lacks all worth. In this way, Melville uses the doubloon as an exemplar for symbols in the rest of the novel. The meaning of such symbols is dubious and subjective, but without meaning, all lack any worth. As such, it is clear that the whale is the same as the coin – while many meanings are offered, there is no true singular meaning. The whale means something to each character, and in a way, to each reader.

Premises

[P1]Melville never explicitly defines what the White Whale represents, leaving each character to project their own meaning onto it. [P2] To Ahab the whale is the sum of all evil, while to Queequeg it is just another whale — much as the doubloon means something different to each crew member. [P3] Melville suggests meaning is what we ascribe, so no single interpretation is the true one. [C] Therefore, the whale in Moby-Dick does not symbolize anything singularly — it is, in a sense, simply a whale.

Counter-arguments

Readers who resist this view argue that Melville's relentless symbolic apparatus — the chapter on the whiteness of the whale, the doubloon, the endless cetology — signals a creature saturated with meaning, not drained of it, and that 'no single meaning' is not the same as 'simply a whale.' The doubloon passage the argument cites actually asserts that 'some certain significance lurks in all things,' which supports meaning-making rather than its absence. Reducing the whale to mere animal, they contend, ignores the novel's insistence that interpretation is its central drama; a multiplicity of meanings is a kind of meaning, not its negation.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Melville's refusal to fix one meaning reads more plausibly as deliberate over-determination than as the whale meaning nothing. [Rejecting P3] The cited line — 'some certain significance lurks in all things' — affirms that things carry significance, cutting against the conclusion that the whale is simply a whale.