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The meaning of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, or the Whale has long been misunderstood because of its characteristic writing style that repeatedly goes astray from the main ‘plot’ of Ahab pursuing the white whale. While its surface story follows Ahab’s pursuit of Moby-Dick and their ultimate showdown, Moby-Dick can also be read as Ishmael’s psychological voyage or exploration into the meaning of the white whale. Firstly, the article attempts to interpret the white whale as an object of the sublime, which causes the feeling of awe and fear. Then the ambiguity of the whale that defies a simple interpretation is attributed to the whiteness. Moreover, Ishmael, the narrator of the novel enlists all kinds of white things that evoke the feeling of fear and concludes that the while whale is the source of fear because it reminds us of death. Secondly, the whiteness of the whale can be explained by Lacan’s concept of the real. The white whale becomes a signifier whose meaning is not fixed but literally floating on the sea. Moby-dick cannot be defined by words because he does not belong to the symbolic order and instead reveals its lack. When Ahab presupposes Moby-Dick as an evil, he cannot avoid death. However, Ishmael’s exploration allows him to be more open to what Moby-Dick signifies. When the Pequod is sunk, Ishmael alone is saved after floating on Queequeg’s coffin as a life-buoy. Only after “a deep dive” into the water, Ishmael is able to escape the fear of the white whale and admit the connection between life and death.