Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick by Herman MelvilleObsession is often vengeful: after the white whale bites off his leg, Captain Ahab becomes fixated on hunting him. Perhaps obsessions are just misguided passions: what our characters think will be their salvation, ends up being their downfall. His ambition is replaced by hatred of the monster, which he sees as a loathsome mirror of his life’s work. Unlike many other literary obsessives, we do not see her fixation consume her. It seems obsessives are defined by their ability to focus on a single pursuit at the cost of all else.

Source: The Guardian July 22, 2016 09:30 UTC