| Herman Melville is one of the greatest romanticists in the American literary history and Moby Dick is his representative masterpiece that is about the unremitting pursuit of the mysterious white whale-Moby Dick. Captain Ahab is the protagonist of this great novel who is a character with many faces. Because of the prominence of this novel and the complexity of the protagonist, it deserves a further study on Captain Ahab. Although lots of critical techniques have been exerted from different angles, history, philosophy, religion, geography, race, nature of capitalism etc, archetypal criticism may be a best approach to explore this great novel and its protagonist for the multitude of archetypal allusions and implications.The theories on which this thesis is based are from those of James G. Frazer, Carl. G. Jung and Northrop Frye. It aims to reinterpret Captain Ahab within the frame of archetypal criticism on a tragic hero and attempts to disclose a kingly tragic hero-Captain Ahab who has been misread as a morbid manic, with archetypal analysis of the characteristics of a tragic hero, motifs of a tragic hero, implications of a tragic hero and the archetypal narrative pattern of a tragic hero. Captain Ahab's persistent pursuit of Moby Dick is a sort of quest and this derives from the vengeance of this whale. Captain Ahab is obsessed with prophecies from someone like Fedalla, Elijah, Pip just like Oedipus and Archilles. The shadow and Mandala implications are always along with a tragic hero according to archetypal criticism and Captain Ahab's universe are full of them. It is evident that Moby Dick is the shadow of Captain Ahab. As for Mandala, which refers to the paradoxical unity and oneness of the apparently contrast as pairs, appears as a form of good and evil, life and death. Moby Dick and the color white represent both good and evil to Captain Ahab and the water and fire, Q,ueequeg's coffin, the Pequod's cyclical trip represent both life and death. Captain Ahab's narrative pattern is an inverted U-shaped pattern that is typical of tragedy in archetypal criticism. His story begins with his loss of one leg and isolation from family, and then rises with lots of opportunities provided by God in form of the warnings of passing ships, his hesitation of his revenge on Moby Dick and his kingly dominance on the Pequod. In the end, for the sake of his wrong decisions, he ends in disaster and death. The thesis is made up of four chapters. Chapter One is a brief and clear introduction to the purpose of the study, the significance of the study, the research methodology of the study and the research limitations of this thesis. And Chapter Two is a literary review of the thesis where the theories and views concerning the thesis are cited and discussed. Chapter Three is the detailed study of the Captain Ahab as a tragic hero from archetypal perspective. Chapter Four is the conclusion of the thesis, which states that Captain Ahab is an archetypal tragic hero.
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