Which best explains why Melville begins Chapter 28 of Moby-ick with a description of Ahab’s physical absence above the ship’s hatches for several days? to show that Ahab has no real command over his ship
to make Ahab’s eventual appearance on deck more dramatic
to show that Ahab is no longer interested in the whale hunt
to make Ahab’s eventual appearance on deck predictable

The main themes of the play are: fate and free will with the inevitability of oracular predictions is a theme that often occurs in greek tragedies the conflict between the individual and the state similar to that in sophocles’ “antigone” and   people’s willingness to ignore painful truths both oedipus and jocasta clutch at unlikely details in order to avoiding facing up to the inceasingly apparent truth and sight and blindness the irony that the blind seer tiresius can actually “see” more clearly than the supposedly clear-eyed oedipus, who is in reality blind to the truth about his origins and his inadvertent crimes.