Moby-Dick: 117-119, 123-127, 130, 132
117 “The Whale Watch”
Fedallah has some seriously strange (and creepy) premonitions for Ahab. He makes three
predictions a la the witches in Macbeth. It all comes back to Shakespeare.
1. They will see two hearses on the sea: one which is not made by mortal hands, and
the other which will be made from American wood; Fedallah reminds Ahab that he
(Ahab) could in fact die on this journey.
2. Fedallah will die before Ahab does.
3. Ahab can only be killed by hemp (rope). Ahab believes this refers to the gallows
(being hanged) and he scoffs, thinking he is safe on land and sea.
118 “The Quadrant” (navigational tool)
The men of the crew are still eyeing the doubloon, waiting for the signal to turn towards
the Equator. Ahab uses the sun as his guide.
“That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing focus of the glassy ocean’s
immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats;
and the this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God’s throne”
(479-480).
Fedallah and Ahab are locked into the sun—Ahab believes that the quadrant is a foolish
manner in which to navigate. He feels the sun mocks him because it can see Moby-Dick and
they can’t. He tramples the quadrant beneath his feet and spurs the Pequod on. Meanwhile,
Fedallah looks on, emotionless, unmoving.
Starbuck believes, “of all this fiery life of thine, what will at length remain but one little
heap of ashes” (481). But Stubb thinks Ahab “actest right; live in the game, and die it!” (481).
119 “The Candles”
The Pequod is hit by a typhoon which rips off the sails and sets the masts afire. It is
actually coming from the east, the very direction Ahab turned the boat to hunt Moby-Dick. Ah,
foreshadowing.
There is a very cool moment where Ahab does a “Back to the Future” thing where he
becomes the missing link between the lightning rod and the ship.
He wants to “feel this pulse (of fire) and let mine beat against it; blood against fire” (486).
Also, everyone sees this as a sign to stop and turn around. Ahab sees the white flame as
“lighting the way to the White Whale!” (488).
Of course Starbuck tries to persuade Ahab to call off the voyage, but Ahab takes his fiery
harpoon and waves it at the men reminding them that they took an oath to find Moby Dick.
123 “The Musket”
Recovered from the storm, Starbuck goes down to Ahab’s quarters to apprise him of the
situation. He see a musket (the same musket Ahab pointed at HIM), and contemplates killing
Ahab. He does not; however, because he is a good Christian (he “wrestl[ed] with an angel”).
Lots of lamp imagery. Ahab even talks of Moby-Dick in his sleep, “Oh, Moby Dick, I clutch thy
heart at last!” (494).
124 “The Needle”
Ahab discovers that the needles on the compass are backward (damaged from the
storm) and that the Pequod has been going west when it should have been going east. They
change course and sail into the “opposing wind” (496).
The captain then makes his own compass (since he broke the quadrant earlier), trying to
show that he is “lord over the level loadstone” (496). Ahab is very pleased with himself and the
crew sees their captain “in all his fatal pride” (498).
125 “The Log and Line” (device for measuring ship’s speed)
Ahab wants to use the log and line, but finds they are rotten. So, the quadrant, compass,
and log and line are now working against Ahab. Shouldn’t he get the hint already?!
Pip has jumped overboard again, but when is pulled back on, Ahab feels that Pip has
touched his “inmost centre” and tied to him “by cords woven of [his] heart-strings” (500). He
invites Pip to stay in his cabin.
The Manxman believes that Ahab is daft with strength, while Pip is daft with weakness.
126 “The Life-Buoy”
As the ship heads toward the Equator things are very calm . . . too calm? The men hear
crying: ghosts? Drowned men? Mermaids? It’s just seals!
Man falls overboard and they send out the life-buoy for him, a cask, but it is too late and
the buoy sinks to the bottom. Queequeg offers his coffin as the life preserver. Hmmm, how weird
and creepy!
127 “The Deck”
Ahab finds the carpenter caulking the coffin to use as a life preserver. The captain finds it
odd that just a few days ago the carpenter was making a leg and is now making coffins. Ahab
believes the carpenter is an “arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling, monopolizing, heathenish old
scamp . . . [He is] as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a jack-of-all-trades” (505).
Ahab has an aside: “Oh! How immaterial are all materials! A life-buoy of a coffin! Can it
be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver! I’ll think of that.
Now, then, Pip, we’ll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous philosophies from thee!” (506-7).
130 “The Hat”
There has been a change in the crew. Stubb no longer smiles; Starbuck is not flittering
around, giving orders. “Joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and
powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of Ahab’s iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly
moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old man’s despot eye was on them” (513).
Ahab & Fedellah: lord and slave, “yoked” together.
Ahab “the monomaniac old man” seems “distrustful of his crew’s fidelity,” and believes
the doubloon is his. He is hoisted up in a bucket to look for the white whale (“isolated, lofty
place”). While he’s up, a bird takes his hat and flies away with it. It would be a good omen if it
was placed back on his head, but no, the seahawk drops it into the sea. Dun, dun, dunnnnn.
132 “The Symphony”
Ahab leans over the rail and drops a tear into the sea; “nor did all the Pacific contain
such wealth as that one wee drop” (519). Starbuck sees this occurrence, and engages Ahab in
a conversation.
Ahab then begins to tell Starbuck about his life’s quest for Moby and may, for the first
time, express some regret.
Key quotations:
“the desolation of solitude it has been”
“Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the
frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab
has furiously, foamingly chased his prey—more a demon than a man.”
“But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly fainted, bowed, and
humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God!
God! God! –crack my heart!—stave my brain!—mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey
hairs.”
“What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozzening, hidden lord
and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and
longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making
me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab,
Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an
errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then
can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating,
does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round
in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky,
and this unsounded sea! Aye, toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye,
and rust amid greenness; as last year's scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut swaths—
Starbuck!"