Read the excerpt from Chapter 28 of Moby-Dick . It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm whale’s jaw. How is the fact that Ahab’s leg is made from whale bone significant to the novel’s theme of humans versus nature?

Ahab’s leg is made from the bone of the very animal that injured him, linking his body to the whale he seeks to hunt. Rather than accepting nature’s power or living in harmony with it, Ahab turns his injury into a reason to pursue and defeat the whales. This shows his effort to dominate nature, so the best answer is “It signifies that Ahab has pitted himself against nature in an effort to dominate it.”

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