Read the excerpt from Chapter 28 of Moby-Dick . He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus. Which best states the theme that is developed in this excerpt?

The description compares the man to someone left by a fire that has burned over him without destroying his strength, then says his body seems cast in an unchangeable mold. These images make him seem fixed and unable to change, supporting the theme of fate’s power to hold a person in a state of paralysis. The excerpt does not emphasize free choice or intellectual flexibility.

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