BOAT QUESTIONS
1. Why does ISHMAEL survive?
2. Explicate the last 2 paragraphs
of the final chapter.
TEST IS NEXT MONDAY!
DAY 1
DAY 1
• “But suddenly as he peered down and down into its
depths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger
than a white weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and
magnifying as it rose, till it turned, and then there were
plainly revealed two long crooked rows of white, glistening
teeth, floating up from the undiscoverable bottom. It was
Moby Dick's open mouth and scrolled jaw; his vast,
shadowed bulk still half blending with the blue of the sea.
The glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an
open-doored marble tomb; and giving one side-long
sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled the craft aside
from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon
Fedallah to change places with him, went forward to the
bows, and seizing Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew
to grasp their oars and stand by to stern” (526).
DAY 1
• “Dragged into Stubb's boat with blood-shot,
blinded eyes, the white brine caking in his
wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab's bodily
strength did crack, and helplessly he yielded
to his body's doom: for a time, lying all
crushed in the bottom of Stubb's boat, like
one trodden under foot of herds of elephants.
Far inland, nameless wails came from him, as
desolate sounds from out ravines” (528-9).
DAY 1
• "Aye, Sir," said Starbuck drawing near, "'tis a
solemn sight; an omen, and an ill one."
"Omen? omen? - the dictionary! If the gods think
to speak outright to man, they will honorably
speak outright; not shake their heads, and give
an old wives' darkling hint. - Begone! Ye two are
the opposite poles of one thing; Starbuck is
Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye
two are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone
among the millions of the peopled earth, nor
gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, cold - I shiver!
- How now? Aloft there! D'ye see him? Sing out
for every spout, though he spout ten times a
second" (530)!
DAY 2
• “The triumphant halloo of thirty buckskin
lungs was heard, as - much nearer to the ship
than the place of the imaginary jet, less than
a mile ahead - Moby Dick bodily burst into
view” (534)!
• "Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby
Dick!" cried Ahab, "thy hour and thy harpoon
are at hand” (535 ).
DAY 2
• “Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemed drawn
up towards Heaven by invisible wires, - as,
arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly from the
sea, the White Whale dashed his broad
forehead against its bottom, and sent it,
turning over and over, into the air; till it fell
again - gunwale downwards - and Ahab and
his men struggled out from under it, like seals
from a seaside cave” (536).
DAY 2
• "Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb! - d'ye see it.
- But even with a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched;
and I account no living bone of mine one jot more me,
than this dead one that's lost. Nor white whale, nor
man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in his
own proper and inaccessible being. Can any lead
touch yonder floor, any mast scrape yonder roof? Aloft there! which way“ (537).
• But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that
the Parsee was nowhere to be found.
"Aye, Sir," said Stubb - "caught among the tangles of
your line - I thought I saw him dragging under “ (538).
DAY 2
• "In Jesus' name no more of this, that's worse
than devil's madness. Two days chased; twice
stove to splinters; thy very leg once more
snatched from under thee; thy evil shadow gone
- all good angels mobbing thee with warnings: what more wouldst thou have? - Shall we keep
chasing this murderous fish till he swamps the
last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the
bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to
the infernal world? Oh, oh, - Impiety and
blasphemy to hunt him more" (538).
DAY 2
“Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably
decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee an$ me a billion years
before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I
act under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest
mine. - Stand round me, men. Ye see an old man cut down
to the stump; leaning on a shivered lance; propped up on a
lonely foot. 'Tis Ahab - his body's part; but Ahab's soul's a
centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained,
half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a
gale; and I may look so. But ere I break, ye'll hear me
crack; and till ye hear that, know that Ahab's hawser tows
his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in the things called
omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they
drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then
rise again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick - two
days he's floated - to- morrow will be the third. Aye, men,
he'll rise once more, - but only to spout his last” (539)!
DAY 3
“Oh! Ahab," cried Starbuck, "not too late is it,
even now, the third day, to desist. See! Moby
Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that
madly seekest him“ (546).
DAY 3
“at that instant, a red arm and a hammer hovered
backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the
flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk
that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards
from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag,
and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced
to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer
and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that ethereal
thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp,
kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven,
with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust
upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of
Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would
not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven
along with her, and helmeted herself with it (551).
“Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet
yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against
its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the
great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled
five thousand years ago” (552).