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Learning Modalities Intrapersonal Learners To pro- mote active reading, invite students 1 to keep a reader’s response journal. Guide them to focus their observa- tions about Ahab’s desire for revenge and on Starbuck’s responses to Ahab. Encourage them to record their own opinions of Ahab’s quest and the reactions of the other sailors.

1 About the Selection Widely regarded as one of the finest American novels ever written, Moby- Dick expresses the view that, despite people’s desire to do so, they will never be able to control nature or understand it completely. In “The Quarter-Deck,” one of the novel’s key early chapters, Ahab becomes the novel’s dominant character, and Melville reveals Ahab’s vengeful, obsessive personality and his conflict Background Moby-Dick is the story of a man’s obsession with with Moby-Dick. At this turning the dangerous and mysterious white whale that years before had taken off point, readers and sailors alike learn one of his legs. The man, Captain Ahab, guides the Pequod, a whaling the true purpose of the Pequod’s voy- ship, and its crew in relentless pursuit of this whale, Moby-Dick. Among age. “The Chase––Third Day” is the the more important members of the crew are Starbuck, the first mate; Stubb, the second mate; Flask, the third mate; Queequeg, Tashtego, book’s last chapter. There the novel and Daggoo, the harpooners; and Ishmael, the young sailor who narrates reaches its climax in the final cata- the book. strophic contest with Moby-Dick. When the crew signed aboard the Pequod, the voyage was to be nothing more than a business venture. However, in the following excerpt, 2 Background Ahab makes clear to the crew that his purpose is to seek revenge against History Moby-Dick. In Melville’s day, the captain of a ship had unlimited authority––and all aboard ship knew this to be the case. from The Quarter-Deck Failing to follow orders brought One morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, harsh and perhaps arbitrary punish- ascended the cabin gangway to the deck. There most sea captains 2 ment, and most crew members were usually walk at that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, careful not to challenge the captain take a few turns in the garden. directly. Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all 3 over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow;

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Accessibility at a Glance from Moby-Dick Context Nineteenth-century whaling voyage Language Challenging (similes and metaphors; whaling/seamen’s language and vocabulary; long compound and complex sentences Concept Level Challenging (Moby-Dick as a symbol of nature’s beauty, power, and immortality) Literary Merit Classic, influential American novel Lexile 970 Other Powerful struggle between humankind and nature Overall Rating More challenging 358 lt11_tena07_u3_p2-355-359 5/17/05 7:31 AM Page 359**admin **209:PQ1126:grade11-U3-p2: EQA

3 Literary Analysis there also, you would see still stranger footprints—the footprints of his Symbol one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought. • Have a student volunteer read But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as Literary Analysis aloud the paragraph beginning his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his Symbol What might “Soon his steady, ivory stride was thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the the “dents” on Ahab’s mainmast and now at the binnacle,1 you could almost see that thought furrowed brow heard.” Make sure students under- symbolize? turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely stand the cause of the “dents” possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mold of every mentioned by Melville’s narrator; outer movement. these are the dents in the wooden “D’ye mark him, Flask?” whispered Stubb; “the chick that’s in him planks of the ship’s deck caused by pecks the shell. ’Twill soon be out.” Ahab’s peg leg. The hours wore on—Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, • Point out that the repetition of the pacing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose2 in his image of dents indicates the pres- aspect. ence of a symbol. Draw students’ It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the attention to the language Melville bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger hole there, and with uses––the footprints of his one one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody aft. unsleeping, ever-pacing thought–– “Sir!” said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given to describe the wrinkles in Ahab’s on shipboard except in some extraordinary case. brow. “Send everybody aft,” repeated Ahab. “Mastheads, there! come down!” • In addition, point out the connec- When the entire ship’s company were assembled, and with curious tion Melville draws between Ahab’s and not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked dented brow and the deeper marks not unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after left by Ahab’s “nervous” steps. rapidly glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among • Ask students the Literary Analysis the crew, started from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were question: What might the “dents” nigh him resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and on Ahab’s furrowed brow symbolize? half-slouched hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering Answer: The dents might symbol- whispering among the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, ize psychological injuries Ahab has that Ahab must have summoned them there for the purpose of witness- suffered in his battle with the great ing a pedestrian feat. But this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, whale. he cried: “What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?” 4 Reading Check “Sing out for him!” was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed voices. Answer: Ahab has dented them “Good!” cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the walking back and forth with his hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magneti- “bone leg.” cally thrown them. “And what do ye next, men?” “Lower away, and after him!” “And what tune is it ye pull to, men?” “A dead whale or a stove3 boat!” More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to

4 1. binnacle (bin« ß kßl) n. case enclosing a ship’s compass. 4

2. bigotry of purpose complete single-mindedness. Why are the Pequod’s 3. stove v. broken; smashed. planks dented?

from Moby-Dick ■ 359

Support for Less Proficient Readers Support for English Learners Discuss with students why the men are curious Draw students’ attention to Melville’s use of and apprehensive. The reasons include that it is metaphor and simile to describe Ahab’s grow- unusual for the men to be gathered on this ing tension (a chick pecking the shell, a stormy particular deck (the “aft” deck at the stern, or horizon). Also draw their attention to possibly rear, of the ship). Also, the men are wary of confusing descriptive phrasing in the text (“not Ahab’s peculiar behavior as he continues to wholly unapprehensive”). Explain that these pace about as if not noticing them. writing techniques were common in the nine- Point out how Melville establishes early on an teenth century. Encourage students to read atmosphere of psychological tension, together slowly and carefully and to paraphrase the with the idea that Ahab is a man with powerful story whenever possible. feelings.

359 5 5 Humanities gaze curiously at each other, as if marveling how it was that they themselves became so excited at such Captain Ahab on the Deck of the seemingly purposeless questions. Pequod, 1930, by Rockwell Kent But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, Rockwell Kent made many pen-and- now half-revolving in his pivot hole, with one hand ink drawings, including those that reaching high up a shroud,4 and tightly, almost appear in this selection, for the 1930 convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus: Lakeside Press edition of Moby-Dick, “All ye mastheaders have before now heard me published by Random House, give orders about a white whale. Look ye! d’ye see Chicago. Kent was a painter, print- this Spanish ounce of gold?”—holding up a broad maker, author, illustrator, explorer, bright coin to the sun—“it is a sixteen-dollar piece, and political activist. Use the follow- men. D’ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon ing question for discussion: topmaul.” Rockwell Kent Rockwell • What evidence of symbolism can While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, you find in this image? without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece Pequod, Possible answer: Ahab’s looming against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its shadow might symbolize the luster, and without using any words was meanwhile destructive effects of his obsession lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so with Moby-Dick. strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed 7 the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality 6 Critical Viewing in him. Receiving the topmaul from Starbuck, he

Answer: Students may say that the Captainthe Ahab on Deck of the advanced towards the mainmast with the hammer illustration captures Ahab’s implaca- uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other, and with a high 6 Critical Viewing ble, obssesive nature very well. In what ways does this raised voice exclaiming: “Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed portrait of Ahab compare whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises 7 Reading Strategy or contrast with your me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his star- mental image of him? Recognizing Symbols board fluke5—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white [Compare and Contrast] • Point out that the narrator men- whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!” tions several times a gold coin “Huzza! huzza!” cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they Reading Strategy brandished by Ahab. hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast. Recognizing Symbols What does Ahab’s • Ask students the Reading Strategy “It’s a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul: “a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for treatment of the gold question: What does Ahab’s treat- coin suggest about its white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out.” ment of the gold coin suggest presence as a symbol? about its presence as a symbol? All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with Answer: Ahab’s nailing of the coin even more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the to the mast of the Pequod ensures mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if its central and continual presence each was separately touched by some specific recollection. throughout the voyage. The gold, “Captain Ahab,” said Tashtego, “that white whale must be the same worth a fortune to the sailors, thus that some call Moby-Dick.” symbolizes the value that the quest “Moby-Dick?” shouted Ahab. “Do ye know the white whale then, has for Ahab, and the extreme Tash?” 6 nature of his desire for vengeance. 8 “Does he fantail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?” said the Gay-Header deliberately.

4. shroud n. set of ropes from a ship’s side to the masthead. 5. starboard fluke (flØk) n. right half of a whale’s tail. 6. fantail v. to spread the tail like a fan.

360 ■ A Growing Nation (1800–1870)

Nantucket The Pequod sails from the island of Nantucket, Invite students to do research on the Internet and which is situated in the Atlantic Ocean off the elsewhere to find whaling museums or restored southern coast of Massachusetts, about twenty seaports that feature whaling ships, tools, and miles south of Cape Cod and just east and south other objects associated with the whaling indus- of Martha’s Vineyard. In the late 1700s and early try. You might have students send for brochures 1800s, Nantucket was one of the world’s major on various items and exhibits. Such institutions whaling centers. At one point during this include the Kendall Whaling Museum in Sharon, period, well over one hundred whaling ships Massachusetts; the New Bedford Whaling used the island as their main port. In the mid- Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts; and 1800s, the whaling industry began to decline the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum in and the island developed its other resources. Cold Spring Harbor, New York.

360 “And has he a curious spout, too,” said Daggoo, “very bushy, even Literary Analysis 8 Literary Analysis 7 Symbol for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?” What image of Symbol “And he have one, two, tree—oh! good many iron in him hide, too, Moby-Dick is created in Captain,” cried Queequeg disjointedly, “all twiske-tee betwisk, like this discussion? • Invite listeners to focus on the him—him—” faltering hard for a word, and screwing his details about Moby-Dick that are hand round and round as though uncorking a bottle— offered by each speaker. Suggest “like him—him—” that students use a graphic organ- “Corkscrew!” cried Ahab, “aye, Queequeg, the harpoons izer like one shown on p. 357 to lie all twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout record these details. is a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile • Ask students the Literary Analysis of our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheepshearing; question: What image of Moby- aye, Tashtego, and he fantails like a split jib in a squall. Death Dick is created in this discussion? and devils! men, it is Moby-Dick ye have seen—Moby-Dick— Possible answer: The image of Moby-Dick!” Moby-Dick as an almost super- “Captain Ahab,” said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, natural being is created. had thus far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed struck with a thought which somewhat 9 Background explained all the wonder. “Captain Ahab, I have heard of History Moby-Dick—but it was not Moby-Dick that took off thy leg?” Discuss with students why Ahab’s “Who told thee that?” cried Ahab; then pausing, “Aye, Starbuck; command would surprise the crew. aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby-Dick that dismasted me; Point out that sailors on a whaler Moby-Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, signed on for a share of the net prof- aye,” he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart- its. Although some probably hoped stricken moose; “Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that for adventure, most sailors simply razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber8 for me forever and a day!” hoped to capture as many whales as Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted 9 possible so they could sell the valu- out: “Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the able whale oil, whalebone, and other Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s whale byproducts. It would be flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! understandable if Ahab’s crew were to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of to show reluctance to chase a single earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men, whale. will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look brave.” “Aye, aye!” shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to 10 the excited old man: “A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance for Reading Check Moby-Dick!” Answer: The real purpose is to chase “God bless ye,” he seemed to half sob and half shout. “God bless ye, and kill the great white whale, Moby- men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what’s this long Dick. face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not game for Moby-Dick?” “I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.” 10

7. parmacetty (pär« mß set« è) n. dialect for spermaceti, a waxy substance taken from a What does Ahab say is his sperm whale’s head and used to make candles. real purpose for making 8. lubber (lub« ßr) n. slow, clumsy person. the voyage?

from Moby-Dick ■ 361

Strategy for Less Proficient Readers Strategy for English Learners To help students comprehend the text, have Help improve students’ comprehension them list and discuss the physical traits that with the Series of Events Chain Graphic Ahab and the crew members say distinguish Organizer in Graphic Organizer Transparencies, Moby-Dick from other whales. These include p. 311. Use this to help students connect the his white color; his unique way of fanning his events in the story. tail before submerging; his unusual, large, and “bushy” spout; his quickness; and his hide, which contains several iron harpoons.

361 11 Literary Analysis “Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a little lower layer. If money’s to be the measurer, man, and the Literary Analysis Symbol and Theme 11 accountants have computed their great countinghouse the globe, by Symbol and Theme What • Have students read this passage girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let me do Ahab’s comments say and identify references to money tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!” about the value of money compared with great and commerce (Nantucket market, “He smites his chest,” whispered Stubb, “what’s that for? methinks desire? money’s, accountants, computed, it rings most vast, but hollow.” countinghouse, guineas, premium). “Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, “that simply smote • Then, ask students how they know thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Ahab is using business metaphors Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.” to emphasize the strength of his “Hark ye yet again—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, desire to catch and kill Moby-Dick. are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the If necessary, point out his explicit undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts reference to “my vengeance” and forth the moldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If his physical indication of his heart. man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach • Ask students the first Literary outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is Analysis question: What do Ahab’s that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. 12 comments say about the value of But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous Vocabulary Builder money compared with great strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing inscrutable (in skrØt« ß bßl) desire? is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white adj. not able to be easily understood Answer: Ahab views desire––even whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blas- if it is considered “vengeance”–– as phemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do far more valuable than money. that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, 12 Literary Analysis is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is a doltish stare! So, Symbol so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. • Read aloud the passage more than But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. once, so that students can focus on There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not the key ideas of Ahab’s speech. to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted • Help students understand Ahab’s tawn—living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The pagan leopards— references to masks. These tell the the unrecking and unworshiping things, that live, and seek, and give reader that the captain believes no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are that the whale’s behavior shows it they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! Literary Analysis to be acting in response to a mind he laughs! See yonder Chilean! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid Symbol What insights into and will, rather than by animal the general hurricane, thy one tossed sapling cannot, Starbuck! And the whale’s symbolic instincts. what is it? Reckon it. ’Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for meaning can you gain from a close reading of Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the best • Ask students the second Literary this passage? Analysis question: What insights lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every into the whale’s symbolic meaning foremasthand has clutched a whetstone. Ah! constrainings seize thee; I can you gain from a close reading see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!—Aye, aye! thy silence, then, of this passage? that voices thee. (Aside) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he Answer: Close reading indicates has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me that Ahab (and the reader) must now, without rebellion.” view the whale on both real and “God keep me!—keep us all!” murmured Starbuck, lowly. symbolic levels. Ahab declares here But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, that he does not care whether the Ahab did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh whale acts on its own out of malice or at the direction of another greater will (“Talk not to me of 362 ■ A Growing Nation (1800–1870) blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me”). Indeed, the unknowability of the whale’s—and by implication God’s—motives are the very thing Ahab hates. Because it is hate that drives Ahab, his quest Hunting Rituals Ahab gathers his crew on the quarter-deck to made offerings to ensure that the animals is cast symbolically in this passage begin the hunt for Moby-Dick. The gathering would come near enough to be taken. as hubris, or the placing of the self has ceremonial aspects that echo the tradition Have students find out more about pre-hunt above the will of God as revealed in of centuries of pre-hunt rituals. Tell students rituals in North America or elsewhere. Have nature, including the white whale. that ever since the earliest Americans drummed them look for similarities and differences and sang to address the animal spirits before among them. Invite students to make class a hunt, many peoples have believed in the presentations of their findings. power of ritual to aid their success. For example, before buffalo hunts, the Blackfeet and other Plains Indians held celebrations in which they prayed, danced, sang, smoked, and

362 from the hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the 13 Reading Check cordage; nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck’s downcast eyes Answer: Ahab shares a pre-hunt lighted up with the stubbornness of life; the subterranean laugh died drink with his crew in order to get away; the winds blew on; the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled them to pledge their success in the as before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye hunt for Moby-Dick. come? But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yetnot so much predictions from without, as verifications of the fore-going things within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on. “The measure! the measure!” cried Ahab. Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him near the capstan,9 with their harpoons in their hands, while his three mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship’s company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian. “Drink and pass!” he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the nearest seamen. “The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short drafts—long swallows, men; ’tis hot as Satan’s hoof. So, so; it goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this way it comes. Hand it me—here’s a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill! “Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand there with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some sort revive a noble custom of my fishermen fathers before me. O men, you will yet see that—Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come

13

With whom does Ahab share a drink? For what 9. capstan (kap« sten) n. large cylinder, turned by hand, around which cables are wound. purpose?

from Moby-Dick ■ 363

Strategy for Less Proficient Readers Strategy for Advanced Readers Moby-Dick is a huge novel, and when it is read Point out that Ahab could be described as suf- in its entirety, the characters grow in detail and fering what the Greeks called hubris, or exces- fullness before the reader’s eyes. In excerpts like sive pride. Invite these students to define the these, students may need help delineating the term, to identify other tragic heroes who share characters. For especially challenging passages, this character trait, and to lead the class in a have students read each paragraph twice–– discussion of how hubris might be said to apply once silently and once aloud. Help students to Ahab. identify any fragments of dialogue or descrip- tion that seem important or suggestive about a particular character.

363 14 Literature in Context not sooner. Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, wer’t not thou St. Vitus’ imp10—away, thou ague!11 Melville When the Acushnet “Advance, ye mates! cross your lances full before me. Well 14 History Connection rounded Cape Horn and crossed the done! Let me touch the axis.” So saying, with extended arm, he The Legend of the White Whale Pacific Ocean to the Marquesas grasped the three level, radiating lances at their crossed Herman Melville’s whaling Islands in 1842, Melville deserted the center; while so doing, suddenly and nervously twitched them; experiences in the South Pacific ship and headed inland. There he meanwhile glancing intently from Starbuck to Stubb; from encountered the Typees, an island provided him with rich material Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some nameless, interior for his writing. While working tribe rumored to be cannibals. To volition, he would fain have shocked into them the same aboard the whaling ship Melville’s surprise, the people were fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar12 of his own Acushnet, he often heard stories peaceful and generous. He was to magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, about an elusive, monstrous white whale. Melville expanded this use this experience later as the basis and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; for his 1846 novel Typee. legend—adding his knowledge of the honest eye of Starbuck fell downright. the day-to-day workings of a Connect to the Literature Review “In vain!” cried Ahab; “but, maybe, ’tis well. For did ye three whaler—into his best-known with students Ahab’s perception of but once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric work, Moby-Dick. Moby-Dick’s behavior. Encourage thing, that had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it Melville also based his novel them to cite examples of animals would have dropped ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down on an actual whaling disaster: the who have behaved in an extraordi- lances! And now, ye mates, I do appoint ye three cupbearers to 1820 sinking of a Nantucket whaling ship, the Essex, by a nary way, whether good or bad. my three pagan kinsmen there—yon three most honorable sperm whale. Melville had read a Answer: Students should support gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain the first-person account of the their answers with appropriate rea- task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, disaster written by the ship’s first soning and examples. using his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own mate—one of eight survivors. The condescension, that shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye whale’s attack on the ship was 15 will it. Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!” believed to be both intentional Literary Analysis and unprovoked. Symbol Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet • Encourage students to visualize or long, held, barbs up, before him. model what the harpooners are Do you think it is possible for an “Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! animal such as a whale to act doing, as well as what Ahab has in know ye not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye with destructive and even mind. cupbearers, advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!” malicious intent? Explain. • If necessary, help students under- 15 Forthwith, slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed stand that the harpooners are the harpoon sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter. removing the iron part of their har- “Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Literary Analysis poons and up-ending the sockets Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Symbol What is Ahab’s to use as cups, which Ahab will fill Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit symbolic purpose in with drink. upon it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the having his harpooners drink from their weapons? Ask students the Literary Analysis deathful whaleboat’s bow—Death to Moby-Dick! God hunt us all, if we question: What is Ahab’s symbolic do not hunt Moby-Dick to his death!” The long, barbed steel goblets Vocabulary Builder purpose in having his harpooners were lifted; and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the drink from their weapons? 16 maledictions (mal« ß dik« spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, shßnz) n. curses Answer: Ahab may wish them to and turned, and shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished participate in a pre-hunt ritual that pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew; when, waving his free symbolizes a common mission and hand to them, they all dispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin. allegiance. The act of drinking from their weapons symbolically binds 10. St. Vitus’ imp offspring of St. Vitus, the patron saint of people stricken with the them together as extensions of nervous disorder chorea, which is characterized by irregular, jerking movements. 11. ague (à« gyØ) n. a chill or fit of shivering. Ahab’s vision and vengeance. 12. Leyden (lìd« ßn) jar n. glass jar coated inside and out with tinfoil and having a metal Students may mention that the rodconnected to the inner lining; used to condense static electricity. drinking from the “chalices” is rem- iniscent of religious rituals. 364 ■ A Growing Nation (1800–1870) 16 Vocabulary Builder Latin Prefix mal- • Point out the word maledictions in the bracketed sentence. Tell stu- dents that mal- means “bad.” Moby-Dick Moby-Dick is a long and complex novel that can Day” is the last chapter of the fifth and final • Have students look up this word in be divided into five parts. In the first part, the part, in which Melville focuses on the search a dictionary. reader meets Ishmael, the story’s narrator, and for––and confrontation with––the great whale. • As a class, have students suggest learns of his relationship with the harpooner In a one-page epilogue, Ishmael tells how he Queequeg. The chapter “The Quarter-Deck” survived to tell his tale: He was rescued by other words that contain mal-. appears in the next part of the book, the another ship, the Rachel, “that in her retracing Possibilities include: malicious, section that develops the character of Ahab search after her missing children, only found malign, malodorous, maladroit. and the conflict between Ahab and Moby-Dick. another orphan.” Parts three and four are concerned with the Melville’s reference is to the Bible’s book of business of the Pequod and the general subject Jeremiah in which Rachel is said to be weeping of whales and whaling. “The Chase––Third for her children, “because they were not.”

364 17 17 Humanities q Moby-Dick, 1930, by Rockwell Kent After Moby-Dick has been sighted in the Pacific Ocean, the Throughout his life, Kent tested his Pequod’s boats pursue the whale for two days. One of the boats devotion to nature. He spent has been sunk, and Ahab’s ivory leg has been broken off. How- extended time in some of the ever, as the next day dawns, the chase continues. planet’s coldest and most remote, severe environments. Kent captured q these experiences in his drawings, paintings, illustrations, and prints in some of the most authentic The Chase—Third Day evocations of nature’s power in The morning of the third day dawned fair and twentieth-century art. Use the fresh, and once more the solitary night man at the following question for discussion: foremasthead was relieved by crowds of the daylight • What evidence of symbolism can lookouts, who dotted every mast and almost you find in this image? every spar. Possible answer: The small “D’ye see him?” cried Ahab; but the whale was whales are fleeing Moby-Dick as not yet in sight. the giant surfaces. The act of “In his infallible wake, though; but follow that Rockwell Kent surfacing might represent the wake, that’s all. Helm there; steady, as thou goest, destiny of the whale in this novel. and hast been going. What a lovely day again! were

it a new-made world, and made for a summerhouse Moby-Dick, 18 to the angels, and this morning the first of its throwing Critical Viewing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here’s food 18 Critical Viewing Answer: Students may infer that the for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only Draw an inference about whale pictured here is huge. Their the size of the whale feels, feels, feels; that’s tingling enough for mortal man! to think’s audacity. inference might be based on the pictured. On what details proximity of three small whales. If God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a do you base your these are swimming in the vicinity of coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor inference? [Infer] brains beat too much for that. And yet, I’ve sometimes thought my brain the large one, then the latter is was very calm—frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in indeed enormous. which the contents turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it’s 19 Reading Strategy like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the Recognizing Symbols earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds • Have a student volunteer read this blow it; they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the passage as you––or students–– tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this write on the chalkboard words through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated and phrases that Melville uses to 13 them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out Reading Strategy characterize the wind. 19 upon it!—it’s tainted. Were I the wind, I’d blow no more on such a wicked, Recognizing Symbols • Lead students to see that these miserable world. I’d crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, What does the wind images include wild winds, vile ’tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every symbolize to Ahab? wind, tainted, noble and heroic fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run thing, coward wind, bodiless, most through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark-naked men, but will special . . . most cunning, glorious not stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing—a 20

and gracious, and so on. For how long has the Pequod pursued Monitor Progress: Ask students 13. fleeces (flès« ßz) n. sheep. Moby-Dick? the Reading Strategy question: What does the wind symbolize to Ahab? ■ from Moby-Dick 365 Answer: The wind symbolizes the maddening, sometimes ineffable, noble, and glorious power of nature. He absolves it of malice, however, unlike Moby-Dick. Support for Special Needs Students These students may benefit from seeing some in the 1956 film Moby Dick. Screen a video of 20 or all of a dramatized version of Melville’s this production for students. Have students Reading Check sprawling story. Of course, Moby-Dick has all view one or more scenes in order to help Answer: The Pequod is in its third the elements of a blockbuster movie–– them appreciate the characterizations of Ahab, day of pursuing Moby-Dick. compelling characters, exotic locations, Starbuck, and Ishmael; the evocations of the and one of the largest movie “villains” whale as a symbol of nature’s power and of imaginable––and filmmakers have tried a the untamable; and the various conflicts that number of times to bring to the screen drive the story forward. Melville’s tale of the great white whale. One of the best attempts was made by direc- tor John Huston, who cast Gregory Peck as Ahab

365 21 Literature in Context nobler thing than that. Would now the wind but had a body but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all The Whale as Archetype these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as 21 Humanities Connection In the biblical tale, the great fish is agents. There’s a most special, a most cunning, oh, a most mali- portrayed as the embodiment of evil. cious difference! And yet, I say again, and swear it now, that The Whale as Archetype Jonah is sent by God to the city of there’s something all glorious and gracious in the wind. These An archetype is an image, Ninevah to prophesy about the city’s asymbol, a character, or a plot warm trade winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow that recurs so consistently wickedness. To escape God’s order, straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer across cultures and time that it is Jonah heads in the opposite direc- not from their mark, however the baser currents of the sea may considered universal. The term tion. However, his ship is engulfed turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippis of the land swift and comes from Swiss psychologist by an extraordinary storm. Knowing swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal Carl Jung (1875–1961), who believed that certain human that his disobedience has caused the poles! these same trades that so directly blow my good ship on; storm, Jonah asks to be thrown experiences have become these trades, or something like them—something so unchange- ashared genetic memory. overboard. He is swallowed by a able, and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! Aloft According to Jung, this “collec- “great fish,” stays inside it for there! What d’ye see?” tive unconscious” explains why three days and nights, and is finally “Nothing, sir.” archetypes evoke strong feelings vomited onto land. The ninth “Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon14 goes a-begging! in people of all cultures. chapter of Melville’s Moby-Dick See the sun! Aye, aye, it must be so. I’ve oversailed him. How, The whale had made many addresses the story of Jonah directly. got the start? Aye, he’s chasing me now; not I, him—that’s bad; appearances in myth, folklore, literature, and art well before Connect to the Literature Ask I might have known it, too. Fool! the lines—the harpoons he’s Melville used it as a central students how they react to the image towing. symbol in Moby-Dick. Perhaps of a whale. How might it different Aye, aye, I have run him by last night. About! about! Come the most famous is the biblical from their reactions to a huge, mys- down, all of ye, but the regular lookouts! Man the braces!” tale in which Jonah is swallowed terious, fearsome creature about Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on by a whale and then cast ashore. Because the whale is the largest whom they know very little? the Pequod’s quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse of all animals, its image evokes Possible answer: Because of scien- direction, the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she fear and awe, as well as a sense tific advances, modern readers know rechurned the cream in her own white wake. of the power of nature. In more about whales and their behav- “Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw,” Moby-Dick, Melville used these ior. Many modern readers probably murmured Starbuck to himself, as he coiled the new-hauled archetypal associations to create have seen whales at aquariums and main brace upon the rail. “God keep us, but already my bones fiction of enduring power. do not fear them. However, a feel damp within me, and from the inside wet my flesh. I mis-

whale’s size and power might still doubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!” Do you think modern readers inspire awe. “Stand by to sway me up!” cried Ahab, advancing to the react with fear and awe hempen basket.15 “We should meet him soon.” to the image of a 22 Literary Analysis “Aye, aye, sir,” and straightway Starbuck did Ahab’s whale? Explain. Symbol bidding, and once more Ahab swung on high. A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time • Have a student volunteer read this itself now held long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, passage in which Ahab addresses some three points off the weather bow, Ahab descried the spout the masthead and then begins to again, and instantly from the three mastheads three shrieks compare himself to it. went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced it. • Ask students the Literary Analysis “Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby- question on p. 367: What symbolic Dick! On deck there!—brace sharper up; crowd her into the meaning do you find in the com- parison between Ahab and the mast? 14. doubloon (du blØn«) n. old Spanish gold coin. (Ahab offered it as a reward to the first man to spot the whale.) • As students consider the question, 15. hempen basket rope basket. (The basket was constructed earlier by Ahab, so that he you might list words and phrases could be raised, by means of a pulley device, to the top of the mainmast.) from their responses in a Venn diagram on the chalkboard. This 366 ■ A Growing Nation (1800–1870) diagram can help students see the similarities and differences between Ahab and the masthead. Answer: Students may say that to Ahab the mast represents his resolve in his quest for Moby-Dick. Whales The mast stands alone, tall, strong, In existence for over ten million years, whales 2. How are the swimming methods of whales and long lasting, as he does in his are among the world’s most ancient and intelli- and of fish different? How far can whales gent animals. They also are the largest: The swim? single-mindedness. blue whale is heavier and longer than any 3. What is the world’s whale population today? known dinosaur. Invite students to find out Are whales in danger of extinction? more about these amazing mammals. They can 4. How do whales, porpoises, and dolphins find interesting information as they work to differ? answer questions like these: 5. How do whales communicate with one 1. How do whales keep warm? How deep do another? they dive? Invite students to share their findings.

366 wind’s eye. He’s too far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! 23 Background Stand over that helmsman with a topmaul! So, so; he travels fast, and I Literature must down. But let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; there’s time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; The Parsee is a Persian sailor who dis- aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand appeared in the previous chapter of hills of Nantucket! The same!—the same!—the same to Noah as to me. the novel. Earlier in the book, a pre- There’s a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must diction was made that he would die lead somewhere—to something else than common land, more palmy before Ahab but that Ahab would see than the palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to wind- him once more before his own ward, then; the better if the bitterer quarter. But good-bye, good-bye, death. old masthead! What’s this?—green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. No such green weather stains on Ahab’s head! There’s the Literary Analysis 24 Critical Thinking difference now between man’s old age and matter’s. But aye, old mast, Symbol What symbolic Analyze 22 meaning do you find in the we both grow old together; sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my • Have three students––playing ship? Aye, minus a leg, that’s all. By heaven this dead wood has the comparison between Ahab and the mast? Ahab, Starbuck, and the better of my live flesh every way. I can’t compare with it; and I’ve known narrator––read aloud this some ships made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the passage. most vital stuff of vital fathers. What’s that he said? he should still go before me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have • Ask students to explain what is happening in this exchange eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? between Ahab and Starbuck. and all night I’ve been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, Answer: Students may respond aye, like many more thou told’st direful truth as touching thyself, O 23 that Ahab is expressing fear and Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good-bye, masthead—keep apprehension prior to this (his next a good eye upon the whale, the while I’m gone. We’ll talk tomorrow, nay, attempt to kill Moby-Dick) and that tonight, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail.” Starbuck is making one last futile He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered effort to persuade Ahab to forgo through the cloven blue air to the deck. the quest. In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop’s stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the 25 mate—who held one of the tackle ropes on deck—and bade him pause. Reading Check “Starbuck!” Answer: Starbuck begs Ahab not to “Sir?” pursue Moby-Dick in a small har- “For the third time my soul’s ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck.” pooning boat. “Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so.” “Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, Starbuck!” “Truth, sir: saddest truth.” “Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of 24 the flood—and I feel now like a billow that’s all one crested comb, Starbuck. I am old—shake hands with me, man.” Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck’s tears the glue. “Oh, my captain, my captain!—noble heart—go not—go not!—see, it’s a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!” “Lower away!”—cried Ahab, tossing the mate’s arm from him. 25

“Stand by the crew!” What does Starbuck beg In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern. Ahab to do?

from Moby-Dick ■ 367

367 26 Reading Strategy “The sharks! the sharks!” cried a voice from the low cabin window Vocabulary Builder there; “O master, my master, come back!” prescient (presh«ßnt) adj. Recognizing Symbols But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and having foreknowledge • As you read aloud this passage, the boat leaped on. ask students to think about the Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had 27 possible symbolic meaning of the he pushed from the ship, when numbers of sharks that surround Ahab and sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark follow him in his small boat. waters beneath the hull, maliciously • Help students understand that the snapped at the blades of the oars, every 26 sharks separate Ahab further from time they dipped in the water; and in this his crew. Moreover, they suggest way accompanied the boat with their bites. in a symbolic way that Ahab’s It is a thing not uncommonly happening to pursuit of the white whale is the whaleboats in those swarming seas; the foolish and doomed. The sharks sharks at times apparently following them add an extra element of danger; in the same prescient way that vultures they are harbingers of death. hover over the banners of marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks 27 Humanities that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; Moby-Dick, 1930, by Rockwell Kent and whether it was that Ahab’s crew were This is another of Rockwell’s pen-and- all such tiger-yellow barbarians, and ink drawings for the Lakeside Press therefore their flesh more musky to the edition of Moby-Dick. Use the follow- senses of the sharks—a matter sometimes ing question for discussion. well known to affect them—however it was, • What evidence of symbolism can they seemed to follow that one boat without you find in this image? molesting the others. Possible answer: Although the “Heart of wrought steel!” murmured whale is largely out of sight, it is Starbuck gazing over the side, and following

responsible for the chaos and with his eyes the receding boat—“canst thou Kent Rockwell destruction portrayed in the image. yet ring boldly to that sight?—lowering thy The whale’s partial concealment keel among ravening sharks, and followed

29 Moby-Dick, beneath the sea may symbolize by them, open-mouthed to the chase; and the “masked,” “inscrutable” this the critical third day?—For when three days flow together in one 28 Critical Viewing malice that Ahab sees in Moby- continuous intense pursuit; be sure the first is the morning, the What details from Dick’s actions. second the noon, and the third the evening and the end of that thing— Moby-Dick did the artist be that end what it may. Oh! my God! what is this that shoots through probably use to create this 28 Critical Viewing me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectant—fixed at the top of a illustration? [Hypothesize] Answer: Students may respond shudder! Future things swim before me, as in empty outlines and that the artist used many details skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl; thou fadest in from Moby-Dick to create this illustra- pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous 16 tion, among them the descriptions of blue. Strangest problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep the boats, harpoons, and lines, between—Is my journey’s end coming? My legs feel faint; like his who as well as the descriptions of the size, has footed it all day. Feel thy heart—beats it yet? Stir thyself, speed, and power of Moby-Dick as Starbuck!—stave it off—move, move! speak aloud!—Masthead there! he dives and surfaces. See ye my boy’s hand on the hill?—Crazed—aloft there!—keep thy

29 Reading Strategy 16. Mary . . . blue reference to Starbuck’s wife and son. Recognizing Symbols

•Tell students that three is a tradi- 368 ■ A Growing Nation (1800–1870) tional symbol echoing the trinity in Christian belief. The third number often represents finality. • Ask students to explain the signifi- cance of Starbuck’s reference to the number three here. Whale Songs Answer: Usually the voice of Some people––scientists and musicians Obtain recordings of whale songs to play alike––are fascinated by the mysterious, for students. For example, on the Judy Collins practicality, Starbuck now mournful, musical sounds whales make as album Whales and Nightingales, the traditional recognizes the grim meaning of they communicate with one another. Their sea song “Farewell to Tarwathie” incorporates the three-day chase. Ahab and groans, yips, and wails can carry many miles melodies of the humpback whale. Invite stu- the crew are now in the third through and across the water. Humpback dents to freewrite in response to the day, and Starbuck seems to sense whales, in particular, are skillful performers: sounds they hear. a mystical significance in the Each male sings its own unique song (which can last for up to thirty-five minutes) over length of time the chase has taken. and over again.

368 keenest eye upon the boats—mark well the whale!—Ho! again!—drive 30 Literary Analysis off that hawk! see! he pecks—he tears the vane”—pointing to the red flag flying at the maintruck—“Ha, he soars away with it!—Where’s the Symbol old man now? see’st thou that sight, oh Ahab!—shudder, shudder!” • If necessary, draw students’ atten- The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the tion to the import of what is about mastheads—a downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had to happen: Moby-Dick is about to sounded; but intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his surface. Point out that––given the way a little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining symbolic associations Melville has the profoundest silence, as the head-beat waves hammered and ham- established already for the white mered against the opposing bow. whale––the descriptive details of “Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads the whale’s appearance are bound drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and no to carry symbolic meaning. hearse can be mine:—and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!” • Ask students the Literary Analysis Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; Literary Analysis question: What symbolic meaning then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of Symbol What symbolic is suggested by the description of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a meaning is suggested by the whale’s behavior as he breaks the description of the subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled the water’s surface? whale’s behavior as he with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot length- breaks the water’s Answer: The description of the 30 wise, but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of surface? whale’s behavior, rising slowly at mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell first so that the water shows myste- swamping back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters rious portents of his presence, then flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a bursting from the sea into the air shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk and seeming to hang suspended round the marble trunk of the whale. there, symbolizes Moby-Dick’s “Give way!” cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted near-supernatural status as Ahab’s forward to the attack; but maddened by yesterday’s fresh irons that nemesis. corroded in him, Moby-Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons over- 31 Reading Strategy spreading his broad white forehead, beneath the transparent skin, Recognizing Symbols looked knitted together; as head on, he came churning his tail among • If necessary, remind students of the the boats; and once more flailed them apart; spilling out the irons and identity of the Parsee and of his lances from the two mates’ boats, and dashing in one side of the upper prophecy regarding his own and part of their bows, but leaving Ahab’s almost without a scar. Ahab’s death (see p. 367). While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank • Ask students the Reading Strategy as he shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed question: What does Ahab realize round and round to the fish’s back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in when he sees the Parsee’s body which, during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lashed to Moby-Dick? Reading Strategy Answer: He realizes that his own lines around him, the half-torn body of the Parsee was seen; his sable Recognizing Symbols death is at hand. 31 raiment frayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab. What does Ahab realize The harpoon dropped from his hand. when he sees Parsee’s “Befooled, befooled!”—drawing in a long lean breath—“Aye, Parsee! I body lashed to Moby- 32 Reading Check see thee again—Aye, and thou goest before; and this, this then is the Dick? Answer: He has died and remains hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of thy lashed to the body of Moby-Dick. word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those boats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to me; 32

if not, Ahab is enough to die—Down, men! the first thing that but offers What happens to Parsee?

from Moby-Dick ■ 369

Strategy for Less Proficient Readers Strategy for English Learners The paragraph beginning “Suddenly the Encourage students to use the illustrations waters” marks the start of the dramatic final accompanying the selection to help them pic- clash with Moby-Dick. Encourage students to ture and understand the action. Have them pause here to picture the sudden appearance note key details that they find in the illustra- of the whale and its powerful movements. tions that add meaning to what they encounter Invite them to imagine the spray, the sounds, in the text. Then have students share and dis- and the changing textures of the surface of the cuss these details with other students. water as the giant emerges from, and then dives back into, the depths. You might encour- age students to draw their own illustrations of this dramatic passage.

369 33 Literary Analysis to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me—Where’s the whale? Symbol and Theme gone down again?” • Remind sudents that every symbol But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with functions on two levels––a literal the corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter meaning and a larger meaning–– had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby-Dick was now again and that a theme is one of a steadily swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship—which literary work’s central messages. thus far had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for • Ask students the Literary Analysis the present her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with question: What does Melville his utmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own mean when he describes Ahab straight path in the sea. as being tormented by “far “Oh! Ahab,” cried Starbuck, “not too late is it, even now, the third other hammers?” day, to desist. See! Moby-Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that Possible response: He means madly seekest him!” that Ahab briefly feels a stab of Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled regret and remorse when he to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding passes the Pequod and sees his by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck’s face as he men working hard to repair leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow damage Moby-Dick has done. him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three mast- 34 Critical Thinking heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats which Speculate had just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in repairing them, one after the other, through the portholes, as he sped, he also • Read this passage aloud and ask caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves on deck Literary Analysis students to identify the surprising among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this; as he heard Symbol and Theme What idea that the narrator seems to the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers seemed driving a does Melville mean when be suggesting. If necessary, point 33 nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or he describes Ahab as out that Ishmael is suggesting being tormented by flag was gone from the main masthead, he shouted to Tashtego, who that Moby-Dick may be giving “far other hammers?” had just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a up the fight. hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast. • Invite students to say what they Whether fagged by the three days’ running chase, and the resis- think will happen next. tance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it Answer: Students might respond was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, 34 that because of what has the White Whale’s way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat happened up to this point, the so rapidly nearing him once more; though indeed the whale’s last start fight with Moby-Dick is far from had not been so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the Vocabulary Builder over. In fact, catastrophe may yet waves the unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously pertinaciously (p†r« tß nà« result. stuck to the boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the shßs lè) adv. unyieldingly blades became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost every dip. “Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull on! ’tis the better rest, the sharks’ jaw than the yielding water.” “But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!” “They will last long enough! pull on!—But who can tell”—he muttered—“whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on Ahab?—But pull on! Aye, all alive, now—we near him. The helm! take the helm! let me pass”—and so saying, two of the oarsmen helped him forward to the bows of the still flying boat.

370 ■ A Growing Nation (1800–1870)

Cetology Cetology is the branch of zoology that deals Internet, books, scientific journals, or magazines with the study of cetaceans, a mammalian such as Nature or Natural History. Students order that includes whales and dolphins. might even interview scientists who are doing Oceanography is the study of the ocean research in either field. Suggest that students environments, including analysis of the get started on their research by talking with water, ocean depths, sea beds, animals, and their science teachers about the best research plants. Invite interested students to research paths to follow. what kinds of work scientists at the cutting edge of these branches of science are doing currently. To research today’s cetology or oceanography issues, students can use the

370 At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along 35 Literary Analysis with the White Whale’s flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its Symbol advance—as the whale sometimes will—and Ahab was fairly within the smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale’s spout, curled • Have students note the rapid chain round his great Monadnock17 hump; he was even thus close to him; of events in the bracketed passage: when, with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to Moby-Dick, having nearly turned the poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the the boat over, swims swiftly away. hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked Ahab orders the line connecting into a morass, Moby-Dick sidewise writhed; spasmodically rolled his the boat to the whale to be pulled nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly taut, to pull the boat closer to the canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the whale. The rope snaps in two, and gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been Ahab cries out. tossed into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen—who foreknew not • Then, ask students the Literary the precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its Analysis question: What symbolic effects—these were flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two of them connection between his own body clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing wave, and the boat does Ahab seem to hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man helplessly drop- feel? ping astern, but still afloat and swimming. Answer: Ahab seems to feel as Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated, though the boat is an extension of instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering his body. sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with the line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on 36 35 Reading Strategy their seats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment the treacher- Recognizing Symbols ous line felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air! • Draw students’ attention back to “What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!—’tis whole again; oars! Literary Analysis the passage on p. 370 in which oars! Burst in upon him!” Symbol What symbolic Ahab instructs Tashtego to nail Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale connection between his another flag to the main masthead, wheeled round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolu- own body and the boat does Ahab seem to feel? since a hawk has torn down the tion, catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly other and flown away with it. seeing in it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it—it may be—a larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its • Ask students the Reading Strategy advancing prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam. question: What is symbolized by Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. “I grow blind; hands! the red flag streaming out from stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is’t night?” Tashtego? “The whale! The ship!” cried the cringing oarsmen. Answer: Students might say that “Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths. O sea that ere it be the flag symbolizes the passionate forever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I desire of Tashtego, the crew, and see: the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! will ye not save my ship?” Ahab’s to vanquish the white But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the sledge- Reading Strategy whale; others might say that the hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks Recognizing Symbols flag symbolizes Ahab’s life, which is burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat What is symbolized by the about to be lost to the vast ocean. lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying red flag streaming out hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water. from Tashtego? 37 Reading Check Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego’s masthead Answer: The boat is nearly capsized 36 hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half 37 by the whale’s rolling motion.

wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from What happens to the boat carrying Ahab when it 17. Monadnock (mß nad« näk) mountain in New Hampshire. nears Moby-Dick?

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Enrichment for Gifted/Talented Students Support for Advanced Readers Students might enjoy acting out part of the Guide students to appreciate that the action is exciting action of this chapter. Have students becoming increasingly kaleidoscopic. Have prepare a script, using correct conventions and them notice that readers now catch only brief style to indicate dialogue and stage directions. bits of the action, much as a sailor at the scene Use page 91 in Writing and Grammar, Ruby would do in the midst of the chaos of battle. Level, to help students draft their scripts. Also help students note that Ahab’s statements Guide students to rehearse lines and actions become increasingly disjointed. Aside from the before performing their scenes for the class. frantic chase of the white whale, what do If possible, have students include props to students think is causing Ahab’s strange, make their performances more realistic. sometimes incomprehensible statements?

371 38 Literary Analysis him, as his own forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, stand- ing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming Symbol monster just as soon as he. • Point out that Ahab himself articu- “The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of lates the symbolic nature of the air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman’s great whale in a conversation with fainting fit. Up helm I say—ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the end of Starbuck (see p. 362): “I see in all my bursting prayers? all my lifelong fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, him outrageous strength, with thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns an inscrutable malice sinewing it.” to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose • After reteaching symbol, read duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!” aloud with students the bracketed “Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will passage and ask students the first now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grin- Literary Analysis question: What ning whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb’s details in this paragraph suggest own unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattress that the whale has become a that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, symbol of retribution? thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins Answer: Students may point to of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would details such as the whale’s “swift yet ring glasses with thee, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! vengeance” and the “eternal thou grinning whale, but there’ll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye malice [of] his whole aspect.” not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his • Remind students that it is the drawers! A most moldy and oversalted death, though—cherries! narrator, Ishmael, who is telling cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!” the story. Ask students what is “Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I suggested by Ishmael’s description hope my poor mother’s drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers of the whale as malicious and will now come to her, for the voyage is up.” vengeful. From the ship’s bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; Possible response: Students may hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained point out that Ishmael’s account in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employ- suggests that he has joined Ahab ments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from in his view of the whale as a side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. deliberate agent of destruction. 38 Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, Literary Analysis Symbol What details in 39 Literary Analysis and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship’s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. this paragraph suggest Symbol and Theme that the whale has Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the • Read aloud this stirring speech, become a symbol of harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, retribution? or play the recording of it on the they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume. Listening to Literature Audio CDs. “The ship! The hearse!—the second hearse!” cried Ahab from the • Ask students the second Literary boat; “its wood could only be American!” Analysis question: What thematic Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its elements come together in Ahab’s keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off climactic speech? the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab’s boat, where, for a time, Possible response: In Ahab’s he lay quiescent. Literary Analysis speech, Melville touches on “I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy Symbol and Theme What thematic elements such as hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked 39 thematic elements come personal loyalty, death, humanity’s keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and together in Ahab’s search for meaning in life, the Polepointed prow—death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and climactic speech? mysteries of nature, and good and evil. 372 ■ A Growing Nation (1800–1870)

Impacts on Whale Hunting A decade after Moby-Dick was published, a of Europe, have stopped hunting whales. Norwegian whaling captain developed two Japan and the former Soviet Union still do inventions that revolutionized the whaling hunt, although international pressure to industry. One was a new harpoon tipped with outlaw whaling increases each year. Have an exploding bomb to kill whales more students find out what whale products are quickly; the other was a faster, steam-powered used today and the current size of the world’s whaling boat. As a result, more whales were whale population. Ask them to give and killed in the first forty years of the twentieth support their opinion on whether or not century than in the four preceding centuries. whaling should be prohibited internationally. For humanitarian reasons, many nations, including the United States, Canada, and most

372 without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest ship- 40 Critical Viewing wrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your fur- Answer: The filmmakers show thest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, Moby-Dick’s huge jaw closing upon and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all- Ahab’s tiny boat, which will clearly destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; be barely a mouthful for the great from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at whale. thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, 41 Reading Check though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!” Answer: The Pequod sinks in a The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with ignit- vortex of swirling water. ing velocity the line ran through the groove;—ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye splice in the rope’s final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths. For an instant, the tranced boat’s crew stood still; then turned. 41

“The ship? Great God, where is the ship?” Soon they through dim, What happens to the bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gas- Pequod? eous fata morgana,18 only the uppermost masts out of water: while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the 40 Critical Viewing pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea. In this image from a film version of Moby-Dick, how And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, do the filmmakers use a and each floating oar, and every lance pole, and sense of scale to suggest spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and the whale’s overwhelming round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip power? [Analyze] of the Pequod out of sight. But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying billows they almost touched—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

18. fata morgana (fät«ßmôr gän« ß) n. mirage seen at sea.

from Moby-Dick ■ 373

Strategy for Less Proficient Readers Vocabulary for Gifted/Talented Students Using repeated oral readings, help students Invite students to review the text in order understand how Ahab dies. Guide them to see to create a glossary of nautical and other that he is caught around the neck by the technical terms for readers of Moby-Dick. harpoon line and jerked from the boat. He Students’ entries might include such terms dies throwing a harpoon into a fleeing Moby- as capstan, harpoon, and keel. Dick and declaring his eternal hatred of the animal. Have students use the same technique to recognize the fate of the Pequod.

373 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, Answers the submerged savage beneath, in his deathgasp, kept his hammer frozen there: and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and 1. Students should support their his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in responses with clear reasons and the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not examples from the text. sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, 2. (a) Ahab offers a Spanish coin and helmeted herself with it. made from one ounce of gold. Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen (b) He may sense that they do white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great not feel as strong a motivation shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago. as he does to hunt down this particular whale. 3. (a) He lost one of his legs. (b) It reveals that he is a stubborn, angry, and bitter man. Critical Reading (c) Starbuck is practical and realis- tic and is disturbed by Ahab’s 1. Respond: Do you admire, despise, or pity Captain Ahab? Explain. obsession; in contrast, Ahab is 2. (a) Recall: What does Ahab offer to the crew member who spots obsessive and volatile. Moby-Dick? (b) Infer: Why does Ahab feel it necessary to offer this 4. (a) Starbuck sees the obsession incentive to his crew? as vengeance against a dumb 3. (a) Recall: What happened to Ahab in his previous encounter with animal. (b) Starbuck obeys Moby-Dick? (b) Interpret: What does Ahab’s obsession with Moby- because he is loyal and has served Dick reveal about his character? (c) Compare and Contrast: In what Ahab a long time; he also cares ways is Starbuck different from Ahab? about Ahab, and may unwillingly 4. (a) Recall: How does Starbuck interpret Ahab’s obsession with Moby- admire his courage. Dick? (b) Analyze: Why does Starbuck obey Ahab even though he 5. (a) Ahab is caught by the fouled, disagrees with him? or tangled, harpoon line, is 5. (a) Recall: What happens to Ahab, Moby-Dick, and the Pequod at the yanked out of the boat and end? (b) Analyze: What does the final paragraph indicate about the disappears; with the harpoon in relationship between humanity and nature? him, Moby-Dick disappears; the Pequod sinks. (b) Possible 6. (a) Recall: What is Moby-Dick’s reaction when the Pequod first response: Nature endures in the approaches his flank? (b) Compare and Contrast: How does Moby- face of human mortality and is Dick’s reaction to the ship illuminate the differences between the whale indifferent to human suffering. in reality and in Ahab’s imagination? 6. (a) He surfaces and then disap- 7. (a) Interpret: What does Ahab mean when he says, “Ahab never thinks; pears. (b) In his obsession, Ahab he only feels, feels, feels; that’s tingling enough for mortal man! to think’s audacity.” (b) Evaluate: Do you think Ahab’s beliefs about feels pursued and tormented by For: More about Moby-Dick; in reality, Moby-Dick human nature are true? Explain. Herman Melville is trying to escape his pursuers. 8. Take a Position: This novel has been called a “voyage of the soul.” Visit: www.PHSchool.com 7. (a) Ahab means that he––like Would you agree or disagree with that assessment? Explain. Web Code: ere-9310 many human beings––is powerless to resist following his emotions. Ahab implies that thought is a “higher” process that is best left to God. (b) Students should support their 374 ■ A Growing Nation (1800–1870) opinions with evidence from the selection. 8. Many students may agree with this assessment, given that the last years of Ahab’s life are dedicated to his journey to find and kill Moby-Dick.

For additional infor- mation about Herman Melville, have students type in the Web Code, then select M from the alphabet, and then select Hermen Melville.

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