Moby-Dick Chapters 1 - 4
Before we even talk about the contents
of the novel, what are your thoughts so
far? Confusing? Challenging? Weird?
Awesome?
Van Gogh’s “Starry Night Over the Rhone”
Van Gogh’s “Evening Landscape with Rising
Moon”
Which painting resonates more with you? In other
words, to which painting do you feel more
connected?
To which painting would Ishmael say you are more
connected?
BONUS OBJECT: My quilt, hand done by my aunt for
my wedding
Today is your chance to earn a MOBIE
Debrief Chapter One:
--Dealt with the “Call me Ishmael” issue
--Land vs. sea
--What else can we gather from the word “Loomings”?
--Other motifs you noticed with evidence?
-- “Who ain’t a slave?”
--Why start in this manner? Quiet opening, meditation on
water, reasons for being a sailor, his fate.
--What adjectives could we use to describe Ishmael’s tone
as a narrator?
Chapter Two: “The Carpet Bag”
--Mood of New Bedford
--Romanticism/Nostalgia re:
Nantucket
--The Spouter Inn (Peter Coffin)
--Lazarus
-- “But no more of this blubbering
now, we are going a-whaling,
and there is plenty of that yet
to come. Let us scrape the ice
from our frosted feet, and see
what sort of a place this
‘Spouter’ may be.” [Ishmael’s
voice]
New Bedford, MA - Today
New Bedford Whaling Museum
• http://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/stude
nts
What Ishmael may have seen…
Chapter Three: “The Spouter Inn”
--The painting
“Indefinite, halfattained, unimaginable”
--QUEEQUEG!
--rumors about him
--physical description
--confrontation
Chapter Four: “The Counterpane”
Counterpane
--another word for a bedspread
--what is the extended metaphor
here?
“But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in transition
state – neither caterpillar nor butterfly.”
– Characterization
– Human understanding: While Queequeg is introduced and
appears to be socially under developed and uncivilized, he
may, internally be more civilized than most others, as we will
come to understand throughout the journey.