Narcissism in the novels of Herman Melville

The nineteenth-century novels of Herman Melville, in their exploration of the theme of the conflict of man's godlike aspirations with his all-too-human limitations, anticipate the twentieth-century psychoanalytic understanding of narcissism, as developed by Sigmund Freud and Hans Kohut, specifically its psychodynamic model of the ego ideal in conflict with reality and the finiteness of human life. Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick is a vivid portrait of a narcissistic character, while Captain Vere in Billy Budd stands as a model of the "transformations of narcissism" in a mature individual. Melville's imaginative fiction is still capable of giving us valuable insights into the human condition.