After his famous meeting with Nathaniel Hawthorne at a picnic on August 5, 1850, Melville rewrites and transforms Moby-Dick from an adventure story which mainly focuses on whaling activities, like his earlier narrative stories such as Typee, Omoo, Redburn, and White Jacket, into a more metaphysical story. Although there have been numerous and diverse interpretations by critics on the metaphysical concerns of Moby-Dick for many years, I would argue that partly this story tells of Melville`s own literary ambition and aspiration to become a writer comparable to such literary geniuses as Shakespeare and Hawthorne, both of whom he praised in "Hawthorne and His Mosses" (1850), an essay written immediately after his first meeting with Hawthorne and a kind of literary manifesto, which enables us to predict the directions of Melville`s post-1850 writings. I would also argue that Moby-Dick embodies Melville`s thoughts on his authorship, kinds of works he wants to write, and his ideal readership through characterization of Captain Ahab and lshmael as figures of an artist and an ideal reader. However, in Moby-Dick, as in "Hawthome and His Mosses," Melville excludes women or the feminine from the very heroic task of pursuing the "dark truth"--which can be detected not by the superficial mass audience doting on amusement but only by a few select; eagle-eyed elite--by defining the task as an act which can be performed only by a heroic and great masculine genius. This paper examines Melville`s binary gender notion revealed in Moby-Dick and its relationship with his idea of masculine authorship along with his family life as a writer at this time.