A masterpiece--symbolic allegory at its best.

Suicidal wishes...the longing for self-extinction...and the desire to inflict death upon the source of one's suffering. A universal problem handled with skill, understanding and perfection... Melville intended, to indicate, in this work, the disaster which must result when man constitutes himself a god and sets out to eliminate a force established by God throughout the universe. The whale symbolizes evil, but Ahab, in believing that alone he could hope to destroy it, was also evil.

Check out Ishmael's suicidal ideations that set him off to sea in the first place --
"Call me Ishmael... Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that is requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can." p11.

On one level it has an appeal for children, and on another a deep and penetrating significance for all. A must read.