In the following excerpt, Boker presents a psychoanalytic reading of Melville's motivation in Moby-Dick, suggesting that Melville felt abandoned by his mother and that his art was nourished by “repression, disavowal, and displacement of grief.”

In the following essay, McCarthy studies Herman Melville's depiction of madness in Moby-Dick, arguing that "madness is all but ubiquitous" in this novel. McCarthy contends that madness is found in animals and humans, that the universe itself appears to be mad. Furthermore, McCarthy analyzes the distinct manifestations of insanity in the characters on board the ship and demonstrates the progression of madness in Ahab.

In the following excerpt, Shneidman offers a psychological portrait of Ahab and characterizes his relationship to Moby-Dick as “a classical illustration of the traditional psychoanalytical position of suicide.”

In the following essay, Hamilton discusses Moby-Dick's sea in terms of its theological significance to Melville.