Dear Reader,

Reading Moby-Dick is an adventure. The narrative takes you to MOBY DICK the deepest and strangest recesses of the human mind and through the daily life of a nineteenth-century whaleman. You’re in for a wild—sometimes dull, and other times queer—ride.

Like any good adventure, a map will help you on your journey. IN These fifty objects will help you decode the literary symbolism of Moby Dick, a novel laden with meaningful images and motifs. This guidebook will also help animate the nineteenth-century context in which the novel emerged. The world looked different to Herman Melville in the nineteenth-century, and these objects 50 OBJECTS will help you better understand the text within its context.

Of course, your best guide to Moby-Dick—whether it’s your first, second, or fifth read—is your own mind. Let the novel challenge A GUIDE THROUGH THE GREAT, WEIRD, AND LONG you, bore you, and take you outside of yourself. AMERICAN CLASSIC Good luck and bon voyage! BY

Josh Ameen, Jacob Beaudoin, Laura Byrd, Isabelle Carter, Austin Cederquist, Isabella Conner, Sam Cooper, Tori Corr, Marissa Cuggino, Gianna Delaney, Kyle Erickson, Taylor Galusha, Jackie Ireland, Mathew Lannon, Melissa Lawson, Emma Leaden, Kathryn Mallon, Caroline May, Emily Nichols, Conrrad Ortega, Daniel Proulx, Dan Roussel, Krista Sbordone, Dustin Smart, Bobby Tolan, Sarah Tripp, Brianna Wickard, & Dr. Christy Pottroff

A carpet bag is specifically made for travelling and is usually made out of the same material as an oriental rug. It was perfect for people who did not want to carry enough luggage that would require a heavier trunk. They also could be unfolded quite easily so that they could be used as a blanket in a pinch. Ishmael packs his carpet back at the beginning of the book, kicking off the long journey ahead of him.

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. (Chapter 2: “The Carpet-Bag”)

The Spouter Inn is where Ishmael first COMFORTS FOR meets Queequeg (well, in a bed in the Spouter!). Without this fortuitous meeting, there would be no story. The quirkiness of the inn sets up the rest of the story to have an offbeat feel. The Spouter is a little rundown and it doesn’t have enough beds for each of LANDSMEN its visitors. Sailors carouse in the dining room of this place named after the spouter whale.

Entering the gable-ended Spouter Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. (Chapter 3: “The Spouter Inn”)

In New Bedford, Ishmael attends a service at the Whaleman’s chapel where he hears Father Mapple gives a sermon about Jonah and the Whale. The pulpit is the raised platform where the chaplain gives his sermon. Unlike most pulpits, Father Mapple’s resembles the prow of a ship. It has no stairs but instead it has a side ladder which has red worsted ropes that were donated by a member of the congregation

What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow. (Chapter 8: “The Pulpit”)

Melville devotes an entire chapter to chowder. This flavorful and rich, sustainable food is a delicacy for Ishmael and Queequeg. During their stay at Try-Pots, they eat Nantucket is located off the as much chowder as they possibly can. In contrast, southeast coast of Martha’s Vineyard in the ship food was not exceptionally plentiful and Massachusetts. In the 18th century, the whaling the mates hungry was apparent as their “appetites industry in Nantucket was booming as people [were] sharpened by the frosty voyage.” continued to demand larger quantities of whale

oil. In Moby Dick, Ishmael heads to Nantucket

to start his journey as a whaler, but he discovers Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, that Nantucket feels like the edge of the world, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. exciting, isolated, and full of possibility.

Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what real corner of the world it occupies; how it fish-bones coming through your clothes! (Chapter 15: “Chowder”) stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddy-stone lighthouse…Nantucket is no Illinois. (Chapter 14: “Nantucket”)

Marble Tablet Memorials line the walls of the Whaleman’s Chapel in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a special place where many sailors go before they start a voyage. The Tablets honor sailors who passed away at sea, and, early in the novel, speak to the perils of a nineteenth-century whaling expedition. Ishmael spends a lot of time in this chapel and uses the tablets to acknowledge how difficult it must be to lose a family member at sea because their bodies are never recovered.

Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. (Chapter 7: “The Chapel”)

Queequeg cuts a striking figure in any room—he’s big, strong, imposing, and covered entirely in tattoos. Ishmael is intrigued by them, and tries to uncover their secret meaning. But Queequeg himself does not know the meaning of his tattoos, leaving them an absolute mystery to the reader. The fact that all of the ink on his skin was done by such a wise man from Rokovoko adds to the overall mystery of Queequeg and his tattoos.

[his tattoos] had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with QUEEQUEG the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. (Chapter 110: “Queequeg in His Coffin”).

OR

THE KING OF ROKOVOKO

Queequeg’s tomahawk-pipe is a combination between a classic tomahawk, or a single-handed ax, and a smoking pipe. Not all tomahawks were also pipes, but some were. In this way it combines something classically “savage” (a tomahawk) with an everyday device (a pipe) used by more “civilized” men such as the second mate, Stubb. Melville also contrasts the violent nature of the device with its soothing capabilities. This can be seen as Melville speaking to cultural norms. By combining the “savage” and everyday and the violent yet soothing, Melville warps common view on what qualifies as “savage” and therefore comments on the word’s hypocritical nature.

He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe, which, it seemed had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed his soul. (Chapter 21: “Going Aboard”).

Queequg worships a small wooden statue named Yojo. During Ramadan, he fasts in silence with Yojo atop his head; A beaver hat is throughout the year, he dedicates offerings of food for the figure. malleable and weather- In turn, Yojo helps him make important decisions like resistant, and therefore popular instructing Queequeg to follow Ishmael’s lead on selecting the among sailors. Beaver hats next whaling voyage to join. could be a variety of shapes and fashions, and were worn by both men and women because In many things, Queequeg placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment and people thought they were surprising forecast of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in all cases did not popular and fashionable. succeed in his benevolent designs. (Chapter 16: “The Ship”) Queequeg wears a tall beaver hat, which likely was similar to a top hat or a navy-style hat. Rokovoko, or sometimes Kokovoko, is Queequeg’s home. In Rokovoko, Queequeg is from a noble family; his father is the kind and his uncle a high priest. As a child, Queequeg wanted “Look there! that chap strutting round to leave his island to see more of the world. His travels the corner. He wears a beaver hat and among Christians, however, have made him unfit to be swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a a pagan king. sailor-belt and sheath-knife.”

Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the (Chapter 6: “The Street”) West and South. It is not down on any map; true places never are. (Chapter 12: “Biographical”). A monkey jacket is a standard sailor's coat, marked by its tapering to a point at the back. The color was often blue and sometimes had a white stripe, resembling Queequeg tells Ishmael a story of a stained a present day naval jacket. This popular style of jacket was worn by sailors in the 1850s. calabash, a ceremonial vessel from his Queequeg sports a monkey jacket several times throughout the novel. native Rokovoko. In preparation for a great feast, a high priest filled the calabash with “fragrant water of “It was cold as Iceland—no young cocoanuts” to be shared among the islanders. A fire at all—the landlord said visitor from the West attends the ceremony and he couldn’t afford it. Nothing misunderstands the purpose of the bowl and its but two dismal tallow contents. He proceeds to wash his hands in the punch bowl. The Rokovokoans laugh and take great pleasure candles, each in a winding in this cultural faux pau. Early in the novel, Melville sheet. We were fain to button seems to be encouraging his readers to embrace up our monkey jackets, and cultural differences and to build friendships with hold to our lips cups of diverse groups of people. scalding tea with our half frozen fingers.” (Chapter 3: Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of “The Spouter-Inn”) Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young coconuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held. (Chapter 13: “Wheelbarrow”)

As tools for the hunt, harpoons are used as symbols of masculine strength and savagery. Characters who are described as strong often have some connection to harpoons; Ahab was a harpooner, much is written about the strength of the harpooners on the Pequod, especially Daggoo. The savagery comes from the harpoon's literal use as a weapon and from those who wield it, savagery here in the ambivalent way Melville has used it to describe Queequeg. The Pequod's harpooners are all less "civilized" than the white crew, the first one we meet is Queequeg the cannibal. But there is also a respect in the narrative for the harpooners and their actions; the advocate chapter defends whaling in general as a noble profession TOOLS OF THE and focuses on the harpooners, saying Ben Franklin's kin have thrown the spears from one end of the world to the other.

HUNT But as for Queequeg—why, Queequeg sat there among them—at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him. (Chapter 5: “Breakfast”)

A whale boat is a narrow boat that can hold a couple of men, usually put down into the water from the main boat when it is time to hunt a whale. Oars were used to power the boat, while men with harpoons would try and spear the whale they were going after. The boat had to be strong to carry all the weight of the men and equipment, as well as surviving the harsh conditions of the water. In Moby Dick they are the main device used when the crew is on the hunt. All of the whaleships are destroyed by the White Whale at the end, leaving Ishmael adrift on his coffin alone.

Keep him nailed-Quick!- all hands to the rigging of the boats—collect the oars—harpooners! The irons, the irons! Hoist the royals higher- a pull on all the sheets! Helm there! Steady, steady for your life! (Chapter 134: “The Chase—Second Day”)

The thigh-board is built into the bow of the whale boat, it is a rounded indent in the board, carved to the shape of the harpooner’s thigh. He uses it to brace his thigh (hence thigh- board) while surveilling for whales, always ready to throw his lance. The thigh board represents the way that a harpooner is literally and figuratively connected to the boat in the vast, wild sea.

Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; oftener the boat’s bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body (Chapter 71: “The Jereboam’s Story”)

Captain Ahab has hundreds of sea

charts in his room to help him track the whale’s movements and sightings, hoping they will Pitchpoling is a technique used by many expert sailors to harpoon a whale. bring him closer to finding Moby Dick. Since the Harpooners throw an extra-long, extra-thin spear made of lightweight pine in a high arch— captain spends a great deal of time obsessing over before it plunges down into the whale. Stubb excels at this brutal maneuver in the book. this whale, he is able to detect a pattern from the whale’s movements, giving him a better idea of Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and countless subtleties, to which the better whaleman where the whale will be at a particular time. is so often forced, none exceed that fine maneuver with the lance called pitchpoling (Chapter 84: “Pitchpoling”) While these sea charts are helpful, Ahab relies on a wealth of rational, mythical, and strange

methods for finding Moby Dick. Log & Line is much like a modern day fishing pole: a line is attached to a log, which is thrown into the water while the bait, which is also attached to the line, hangs below waiting for the whale to snatch it up. The Pequod’s log and line appears damaged from the harsh …have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to himself, as after poring over his charts till long after weather conditions, and despite warnings from the crew, Ahab orders them to throw the log midnight he would throw himself back in reveries- tallied him, and shall he escape? (Chapter 44: “The and line out into the water. It breaks—a surprise to no one—but a further illustration of Ahab’s Chart”) disregard for anything except the pursuit of the white whale.

Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a new line altogether. (Chapter 125: “The Log & Line”)) A quadrant is a measurement tool that comprises one fourth of a circle and is used To skin a whale, you need a monkey rope. This device is basically a long rope to measure angles up to ninety with one end wrapped around one sailor’s waist and the other end wrapped around another’s. degrees. Mariners would use this The first sailor stands inside of the boat to stabilize the man on the other end who skins the tool to measure the altitude of a whale. Bound by the monkey rope, these two people depend on each other, and if something heavenly body (usually the North bad does go wrong then both parties involved will need to work together to resolve it which is Star) and thereby determine a what happens in a marriage. Ishmael feels extremely close to Queequeg when they are ship’s latitude. Therefore, Ahab’s monkey-roped together and even refers to them as having a “wedded feeling” and that they use of the quadrant as a tool of were untied as “siamese twins.” For Ishmael, the rope embodies the ties between all men and navigation aboard the Pequod is in the ties that keep men together. line with navigational practices of the 19th century. That is, until It must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow Ahab destroys his quadrant and leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded. (Chapter 72: “The Monkey-Rope”). therefore his rational tool of navigation. By destroying his Otherwise known as the blubber melter, the Rig and Tub boil heaps of oil in a quadrant and stating his reliance on other means of navigation, Ahab dismisses his need giant vat over a blazing flame on the deck of the ship. In addition to hunting whales, sailors for assistance from the heavens. This is a way for Ahab to put himself above any celestial were tasked with processing blubber into commodities on the ship voyage. Ishmaels stares into being or idea of fate and take for himself ownership of his fate and future. the flames from the pots and compares it to the sea and Ahab’s soul. ‘Curse thee, thou quadrant!’ dashing it to the deck, ‘no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship’s Laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart compass, and the level dead-reckoning, by log and by line; These shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea’ of her monomaniac commander’s soul. (Chapter 96: “The Try-Works”). (Chapter 118: “The Quadrant”).

Sperm oil is produced from spermaceti, a light yellowish substance found in the head of a sperm whale. It was highly prized for its many applications. One of these main uses was for lighting oil lamps because it burned brighter and had virtually no scent to it. Sperm oil is the underlying driver of the narrative because it is the reason that the Pequod descends in the first place. The sailors think that their main goal is to hunt as many sperm whales as possible to procure their sperm oil and make a large profit. This is of course before Captain Ahab informs them that they are really just after the white whale, Moby Dick. Spermaceti is a fascinating substance because we are still unsure of its purpose within the sperm whale’s physiology.

But the only thing to be considered here is this- what kind of oil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but the sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils? (Chapter 25: “Postscript”)

WHALE Many sailors made Scrimshaw during long whaling voyages. Scrimshaw is art— carvings, engraving, or sculptures—handcrafted from whale teeth or whale bones. Often sailors would make scrimshaw as gifts for loved ones ashore, and many existing objects are domestic PARTS items intended for wives, sisters, and mothers. These illustrate a more artistic and creative use of whale parts by sailors in the industry.

Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of skrimshander. (Chapter 3: “The Spouter Inn”)

Ambergris is a grey, waxy substance that comes from a whale’s digestive system. Foul-smelling and unappealing before being processed, this substance, when hardened and aged, gains an earthy, sweet aroma that people used to make perfume to help the scent last longer. Ambergris was also used in candles, pastille or incense. In the story, Stubb steals fistfuls of ambergris from a floating mass of whale diarrhea right from under the nose of the crew of the Rosebud.

I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors’ trowsers-buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner.(Chapter 92: “Ambergris”)

Whale Steak can be considered a delicacy or a cheap meal depending on where in the world you go. It can be cooked on a grill, used to make broth and soup, or eaten raw. Be careful what part of the whale you eat because you can get mercury poisoning from eating certain cuts. Wildlife conservation groups have almost completely stopped the consumption of whale meat around the world. The whale steak is a symbol of the first catch for the Pequod, while also being the main object in Stubb's supper. It is the main device to show the hierarchy of the ship in that chapter.

“ About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at the capstan head, as if that capstan were a sideboard” (Chapter 64: “Stubbb’s Supper”))

The Nut. Ahab is something of an amateur cetologist, teaching readers all about the anatomy and biology of whales. He devotes an entire chapter to the physical features of the brain of the sperm whale. Ishmael describes the brain as being small, especially in comparison to something as massive as the sperm whale, or more importantly as frightening as Moby Dick himself, and believes that his “true brain” lies in the animal’s mere size. Comparing a brain, something that holds intelligence, personality, emotion, dreams, desires, memories, to something as minute and simple as a nut might seem trivializing--especially in terms of something as majestic and spiritual as a whale.

The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away behind it’s vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified fortifications of Quebec. (Chapter 80: “The Nut”).

Ahab’s whalebone leg is a prominent component of his character, and is especially vivid in his first introduction. The ivory leg is reminder of Ahab’s unrelenting journey to find Moby Dick, and is a key symbol in the novel. The leg acts as a consolation prize, something to CAPTAIN AHAB make Ahab’s feel more powerful than, and superior to the whale that took his real leg from him. The peg-leg also has some phallic undertones, Ahab feels as though Moby Dick stole his “manhood,” and strives recover it through vengeance.

I hardly noted that the not a little of the overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he OR partly stood. It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm whale’s jaw. (Chapter 28: “Ahab”)

Ahab’s hat sat perched on his head while the crew awaited the arrival of his revenge. Just after Ahab spots the white whale for the first time on the voyage, down out of the sky flew a sea-hawk—that proceeds to scream and snatch the hat off of Ahab’s head. As the bird flew off in THE ONOMANIAC the horizon, it dropped Ahab's hat into the sea. M His hat slouched heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he stood, however the days and nights were added WHO GOT EVERYONE on, that he had not swung in his hammock; yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never really tell unerringly whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times; or whether he was still intently scanning them.(Chapter 130: “The Hat”). INTO THIS MESS

Captain Ahab motivates his crew to find the white whale by offering a golden sixteen-

dollar piece as a reward. Crewmembers fixate on the doubloon and try to interpret its meaning. The coin is viewed differently by each member of the crew. When Ahab observes the coin he sees himself in the coin and ultimately his demise. Starbuck sees the holy trinity and Stubb interprets the mystery of the coin through the symbols of the Zodiac. When Flask looks at the coin, he only sees what he can buy with the money. Pip, the cabin boy, sees the coin as the ships naval, the center of the ship holding the entire voyage together.

Here’s the ship’s navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what’s the consequence? Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught’s nailed to the mast it’s a sign that things grow desperate. (Chapter 99: The Doubloon”)

Ahab’s razors are the pointed, and sharply telling objects that help readers consider Ahab’s unrelenting obsession with the white whale. When Ahab asks the blacksmith to Tashtego’s Hammer. Throughout Moby Dick, Tashtego consistently stays forge a harpoon out of his razors, Perth, he nearly refuses to use them, wary of these weapons of silent as his accomplishments are accredited to others around him. Everything he does falls under the Captain, weapons sharp and unyielding, yet also intimate. These razors had been held in the another person’s name—for instance, he harpoons the first whale of the whaling voyage, but madman’s hands, drawn carefully across his scarred face. By sacrificing his razors for this Stubb claims he was the first to capture it. Despite being undervalued, Tashtego survives longer purpose, Ahab further severs his ties to polite society where shaving would be necessary. The than any other member of the Pequod blacksmith nevertheless consents to forging the harpoon, which is tempered in the blood of (barring Ishmael) as he hammers a sky- Daggoo, Queequeg, and Tashtego. hawk against Ahab’s flag. Tashtego and his hammer demonstrate the brash ‘For the white fiend! … Here are my razors - the best of steel: here, and make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy violence that doomed the Pequod from Sea.’… Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; the moment she left port. His hammer, and as the blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water- like Tashtego himself—like anyone else cask near. ‘No, no - no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper…’ (Chapter 113: “The Forge”) aboard the ship—exists to become yet another tool in the misguided, vengeful destruction of nature. In the end, both the The musket represents control. Starbuck goes to Ahab’s cabin, sees the loaded musket, bird, the hammer, and Tashtego are lost to the and contemplates whether or not he should shoot Ahab with it. Musket in hand, Starbuck holds sea, all wrapped in the flag of Ahab. the crew’s fate in his hands because he holds the power to eliminate the man in charge. At the Everything Tashtego set out to do, from end of the chapter Starbuck ultimately puts down the musket, leaving Captain Ahab in charge on harpoon to hammer, ultimately fell under his captain’s name. their quest for the white whale. “A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, “The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard’s arm against the panel; Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; but turning from the door, he placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place.” (Chapter 123: “The Musket”). 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…” (Chapter 135: “The Chase—Third Day”)

The Pequod carries Macy’s letter in its mailbag. Macy was a mate on another ill-fated Nantucket ship. When the have a gam with his ship, however, the crew learns that he died during an encounter with Moby Dick. Ahab nevertheless delivers the letter to the crew of the Jeroboam. Gabriel, a sailor who has lost his grip on reality (but fosters a gift of prophesy in his madness), takes Macy’s letter, spears it with a knife, and throws it back onto the Pequod. Foretelling Ahab’s doom, Gabriel tells Ahab to deliver the letter to Macy in the afterlife because he will be joining him soon.

Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death himself might well have been the post-boy. (Chapter 71: The Jereboam’s Story”)

A vision of angels with each hand in a jar of spermaceti may seems base, sacrilegious, or comically outlandish to modern readers, but it is a symbol of Ishmael’s whaleship utopia of brotherly love. Elbows deep in spermaceti, Ishmael raptures over the love and amity he has for his shipmates, men who have seen the wonders and terrors of the vastness ocean together. On ship, sailors experience a same-sex intimacy that is not available to them on dry land. The vision of the angels is Melville’s nod to the way people are expected to redirect their love in more SOCIAL LIFE culturally acceptable channels.

Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm forever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have OF A perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fireside, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of WHALESHIP angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti. (Chapter 94: “A Squeeze of the Hand”)

In Moby-Dick, the cabin table represents hierarchy. A crewmember’s rank corresponds with when, where, and how they eat dinner. The Pequod’s mates eat with Ahab in a tense and formal arrangement; afterwards, the skilled harpooners dine at the same table, but with much more gusto and pleasure. Low-ranking crew members eat together in their sleeping quarters after everyone else finished. While the highest-ranking sailors get the best food, the lowest ranking men enjoy their meals and their company much more.

Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be served. (Chapter 34: “The Cabin Table”)

The forecastle is the forward part of the ship which houses the sailors’ living quarters. In this regard the saying “before the mast” came to mean anything to do with ordinary sailors in contrast to a ship’s officers. In the “Town-Ho Story” an attempted mutiny takes place aboard the Town-Ho lead by a sailor named Steelkit. The forecastle is where Steelkit and his comrades are confined for disobeying their superiors. By putting Steelkit and his crew in the forecastle the captain is attempting to reorder the hierarchy of the ship by literally putting these mutineers in their place.

All night a wide awake watch was kept by all the officers, forward and aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway; at which last place it was feared the insurgents might emerge. (Chapter 54: The Town-Ho’s Story”).

Sailors aboard the Pequod slept nestled in hammocks, long pieces of fabric suspended by rope. Ishmael and his fellows would have been tightly compacted right next to each other; privacy would not be common in the hammock. Not only did hammocks save space aboard a ship, but they allowed the sailors to endure the rocking and swaying of the ship during a storm. Even Captain Ahab preferred to sleep in a hammock.

Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies...when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire. (Chapter 44: “The Chart”).

Letter Bag. As inhabitants of the sea, sailors of the nineteenth century were not afforded the luxuries of living on the land. Common delights like the physical presence of family and friends were sacrificed, but contact in any way was mostly unattainable as well. Most correspondents never expected their letters would truly get there to begin with. Nonetheless people of the time would refer to ships as opportunities for letters from home. If someone heard that a ship was leaving for a certain direction, land dwellers would take the chance and write to friends or family over that way. In this way, sailors established an informal postal system among the waves. When vessels would pass each other, sailors would exchange mail.

Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, ‘Captain, I have just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag.’ (Chapter 71: “The Jereboam’s Story”)

Pip’s Tambourine. Despite being one of the lowest-ranking members of the Pequod, Pip becomes a close companion to Ahab towards the end of the novel. After being stranded alone in the sea, Pip is haunted by a dark emptiness. Before this harrowing experience, however, Pip was a light-hearted character who played his tambourine for the crew.

Poor Pip! Ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight; so gloomy- jolly. [...] But Pip loved life, and all life's peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his brightness. (Chapter 93: “The Castaway”).

Sailors have a lot of down time on ships, and many passed the time by playing cards. This is a way for people to take their minds off things, build friendships, or just to relax. The idea of fate and free will is often couched in terms of “playing the hand you are dealt”—which is something each of the characters deals with in the novel. Can they control their fate? Or is it already determined in the cards? Stubb’s Pipe. Stubb, Ahab’s second mate, is rarely seen without his pipe, and it is Well, well; I heard Ahab mutter, 'Here some one thrusts described as an extension of his facial structure. these cards into these old hands of mine; swears that I must He even smokes his pipe while leading the play them, and no others.' And damn me, Ahab, but thou chase of the first whale the Pequod kills on their actest right; live in the game, and die in it!" (Chapter 118: voyage. Pipe-smoking helps Stubb endure “The Quadrant”) Ahab’s harsh rule with good humor.

In the nineteenth-century, a candle is an instrument of survival. “For, like his nose, his People use candles to light up the darkness and find their way from one short, black little pipe was location to another. Unlike electric lights, wax or oil candles only lit up a one of the regular features small area, demanding that people stick close together. Sperm oil candles, of his face. You would supposedly, burn brighter and cleaner than other types of candles. almost as soon have expected him to turn out of “Come along here, I’ll give ye a glim in a jiffy;” and so saying he lighted a candle and held it his bunk without his nose towards me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a clock in the corner, he exclaimed “I vum it’s Sunday—you won’t see that harpooneer to-night; he’s come to as without his pipe.” anchor somewhere—come along then; do come; won’t ye come?” (Chapter 3: “The Spouter- (Chapter 27: “Knights and Squires”) Inn”)

Ishmael, Queequeg, and all the other whalers set sail aboard The Pequod. This doomed ship is old, and it has a ghastly appearance; many of its parts have been repaired and replaced with whalebones from past hunts. The Pequod draws its name from a Native American tribe that was decimated centuries before, foreshadowing the destruction that will come for the crew.

You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I know; - square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod… A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that. (Chapter 16: “The Ship”)

FOUND Moby-Dick, the elusive white whale, lives at the center of the novel. Ahab leads his crew in pursuit of this beast that once nearly killed him and took his leg as a souvenir and warning. The crew hears tales of other ships’ dangerous and deadly encounters with Moby Dick as they approach him. These stories scare the crew, but only AMONG THE drive Ahab further into his vengeance.

Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken WAVES in any man's soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. (Chapter 42: “The Whiteness of the Whale”).

Sharks surround the ship whenever the crew has killed a whale. The sharks themselves symbolize savagery in the sense that they are constantly attacking the dead whales for food, and even attack the oars of the whaling ships when the men are out hunting. But in the world of Moby- Dick, humans are often likened to sharks for their violent appetites.

“You is sharks sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned.”(Chapter 66: “The Shark Massacre”)

A leviathan is a sea creature or sea monster that takes the shape of a dragon or a snake. Even though Ishmael did not like the slippage between mythical and biological beasts in his critique of whales in art history, he sometimes refers to sperm whales as leviathans. Moby Dick is a very long and very strange book. The novel, For while those females are characteristically timid, the young males, or forty-barrel bulls, as they call them, are by at times, seems like an adventure quest with Ahab and Ishmael, far the most pugnacious of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter; excepting those an encyclopedia of all things whale, and a literary history of wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met, and these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a whale references from the bible to 1850. In one of the penal gout. (Chapter 88: “Schools and Schoolmasters”) encyclopedic chapters, “Cetology,” Melville classifies all whales according to nineteenth-century book sizes. The biggest whales (like sperm whales and right whales) are FOLIOS, and smaller whales like the Black Fish and the Narwhale are OCTAVOS. In this instance and more broadly, Melville uses “the book” to help readers better understand the mighty subject of the whale.

…if you descend into the bowels of the various leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as available to the systematiser as those external ones already enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily, in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way. And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted; and it is the only one that can possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. (Chapter 32: “Cetology”)

Birds are often unheard, and sometimes divine messengers. A bird steals Ahab’s hat as a warning, but its message is not heeded at the time. Indeed, Ishmael completely misreads the message, comparing the encounter to the mythological story of birds stealing and returning Coffins typically evoke death. When we first meet Tarquin’s cap indicating he will become king of Rome. The positive connotations of Ishmael’s Ishmael he fixates on coffins, leading the reader to believe interpretation are undercut by the sea bird dropping Ahab’s hat into the ocean instead. More that he is preoccupied with death. In the final pages of the broadly, Moby Dick’s birds are associated with the divine. Ishmael describes an albatross’s eyes as novel, however, coffins take on a new valence. A coffin seeing “secrets which took hold of God,” and the same bird has “vast archangel wings.” The saves him from the shipwreck that killed every other connection is strongest at the very end of the book, when a lone bird lands on top of the sinking crewmember. So he was never really perplexed by death, Pequod to peck at Ahab’s flag—where Tashtego pins it with but perhaps perplexed by how this symbol of death saved a hammer. Throughout the novel, the crew scorned the him from it. birds’ warnings in the pursuit of Ahab’s revenge, and so their last act is one of defiance against those messengers. Whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet… A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards (Chapter 1: Loomings) from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its Now liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin lifebuoy shot simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the and dirge-like main. (Epilogue) 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. (Chapter 135: “The Chase—Third Day”)

All of the images are drawn from the

American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Series Database