Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Chapter 108. Ahab and the Carpenter
We get more stage directions in this chapter. The bone dust from the whalebone makes the carpenter sneeze so much he can hardly talk to himself as he works. The audiobook puts me in mind of that 5th dwarf. Ahab approaches and calls the carpenter "manmaker" and the blacksmith, "Prometheus". I get the feeling that Ahab's description of how to make a new man is a lightly disguised complaint to god about his own and mankind's deficiencies. too short, too small of a chest, wanders too much, short arms (short reach, possibly intellectually as well as physically), the heart apparently gets in the way and causes problems, and loo little brains. What is his wish for a skylight to see in, instead of eyes to see out, all about?

Ahab also wonders if the carpenter can help with what we know of today as, "phantom leg", but of course he cannot. When Ahab exits, the carpenter recalls Stubb calling Ahab strange and gets back to talking himself through his task at hand.

Chapter 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin
Starbuck reports the casks are leaking and repairs will be required. Ahab at first refuses the repairs, and when Starbuck continues to press for them, Ahab aims a loaded musket at him and delivers yet another famous line from the book demonstrating his madness,

"There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod.—On deck!"

I can almost hear Gregory Peck now as I read it again. Starbuck obeys the command but warns Ahab to beware of himself. Ahab thinks over the warning and changes his mind and orders the repairs.

Chapter 110. Queequeg in His Coffin
Queequeg falls ill from crawling around the damp and chill depths of the ships bringing up casks of oil looking for the leaky ones and becomes convinced he will die. Impressed by the "little wooden canoes" he had seen in Nantucket, he asks that a coffin be made for him. More whalemen humor is on display as in carpener makes the coffin out of wood cut from the "Lackaday" islands prompting one sailor to remark, Ah! Poor fellow! He'll have to die now Queequeg gets better after trying out the coffin and we get another comment on free will:

They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.

Ishmael is not the only one who believes Queequegs tattoos are the undecipherable secrets of the world. Ahab calls him, "A devilish tantalization of the gods." Queegqueg's miraculous recovery here reminds me of Grandfather's death scene in Little Big Man. I dare you not to cry and then laugh, even if you have never seen the rest of the movie.

Chapter 111. The Pacific
The Pacific is a great mysterious tide-beating heart of the earth. But Ahab has no time for such thoughts as it will also be the meeting ground where he expects to find Moby-Dick. I was all set for a long poem in prose about the pacific, but Ahab's obsession has cut the chapter all too short.

Chapter 112. The Blacksmith
Perth, the blacksmith, limps due to frostbitten feet. His wife, children died and his life was ruined by alcohol. To escape his life of woe, he decided to go on a whaleship.

Chapter 113. The Forge
Ahab gives Perth some horseshoes to forge a special harpoon to use against Moby-Dick. The harpoon is tempered in the donated blood from the three harpooners and baptized, not in the name of god, but in the name of the devil. As Ahab disappears into his cabin with the completed harpoon, Pip is heard laughing a mocking laugh. Who is the antagonist in the story now?

Chapter 114. The Glider
The Pequod enters the heart of the Japanese cruising ground and becomes busy in the labor of whaling. During the welcomed calm moments, the Pacific seems like a golden land in a golden light. Ahab seems moved by these calms too, but his moody self robs these calms to lose some of their luster. Ishmael wonders about the repeated cycle of life and if and where it will finally end. Ishmael compares humanity to an orphan wondering where its father, God, is hidden, and thinks we must finally die to find him. Starbuck hides in the beauty of the golden calms choosing to be lost in his belief and shutting out the horrors of the world. Stubb basks in the golden calms and declares he has always been jolly.

Chapter 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor
The Pequod passes yet another aptly named ship, The Bachelor, now cruising around boastfully in great spirits on its way back home after a very successful voyage. Hearing they have no news of Moby-Dick, Ahab passes on the invitation to a gam. As The Bachelor recedes with the wind and The Pequod continues on against it, Ahab shows his human side by looking at a vial of Nantucket sand he keeps in his pocket. Does this show he has goals beyond assuaging his wrath?

Chapter 116. The Dying Whale
The whales seem to turn toward the sun during their final moments before dying. Ahab ponders this, and it sounds similar to a dying man turning toward god during his final moments. But life is only given once and the reply is only death.

Chapter 117. The Whale Watch
What a creepy scene? Spending a dark night in an open whale boat on the wide ocean lit only by a lantern hanging on a waif pole stuck in the spout of the whale they had killed. And you just know sharks are swimming all around taking bites out of the dead whale and running into the boat. In the middle of this we are given and eerie and oracle-like prophecy. Ahab tells Fedallah he had "the dream about the hearses" again. Fedallah reminds Ahab that in order for him to die.
1. two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea;
1a. the first not made by mortal hands;
1b. and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in America."
2. Fedallah must die first.
3. Fedallah will appear after he dies to show Ahab the way to his death.
Hearses at sea? A dead men coming back to escort Ahab to his death? He should feel pretty safe if that is the case. How can all of that come to pass in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Impossible, right?

Is Melville once again playing Shakespeare, this time with Fedallah as his own witch?

Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1, lines 92-94

Chapter 118. The Quadrant
Ahab proclaims the sun tells him the truth by using it with a quadrant to determine his exact location. But next Ahab then becomes frustrated with the sun and quadrant because while the sun can most likely see Ahab and Moby-Dick at the same time the quadrant can only be used to tell Ahab where Ahab is but not where Ahab will be, or where Moby-Dick is or will be. He tramples the quadrant. Starbuck thinks the firey Ahab will die out like the ashes of coal. Stubb thinks Ahab burns like sea-coal which is somehow different and seems to say that Ahab is rightly playing the hand fate has dealt him, even to his death.

Chapter 119. The Candles
The Pequod is struck by a typhoon coming from the direction the ship is sailing. Ahab's boat is smashed by a wave even though it was lifted as high as its mooring crane could lift it. Starbuck tells Stubb to quit his cheerful singing that these are signs they should turn back and forget about Moby-Dick. Suddenly Ahab appears next to Starbuck in a flash of lightening and they remember the lightning rods need to be thrown over. Ahab says no out of a strange sense of fair play. Then an atmospheric phenomenon causes the ship to glow and the masts appear as tall candles which panics the men but from Ahab's perspective it is a good sign lighting their way. Ahab's harpoon begins to glow, he grabs it reminds the men of their oath to him to kill Moby-Dick, and blows out the flame on his harpoon in symbolic demonstration of blowing out the men's fear. Then men clung to Ahab in dismay as men will sometimes seek shelter in a storm under a tall tree, which actually decreases their safety.

Chapter 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch
With stage directions again, Starbuck ask Ahab if he can bring down a sail because some of its parts are working loose. Ahab commands them to lash things down but strike nothing. He calls the men cowards and that sails were made to operate in storms like this as his great intellect is made to meet great challenges and he will strike neither. He then chides the men thinking they must be ill with some disease to think of striking things now.

Chapter 121. Midnight.-The Forecastle Bulwarks
More storm and more stage directions. Stubb and Flask talk while lashing down the anchors, "like they will never be used again". Stubb reminds Flask that most ships don't carry lightning rods and they are almost as well off as those who do. So not putting down the chains in the storm isn't that big of a problem. It sounds to me like logic some people will use when refusing to wear a seat belt in a car.

Chapter 122. Midnight Aloft.-Thunder and Lightning
The storm and stage directions continue. While lashing things down, Tashtego expresses his desire for less thunder and more rum. It seems a reasonable request. Is this included to demonstrate how some are either narrow minded, unaffected, or unable to see the bigger picture, or question whether there is a bigger picture or if it is worth it?

Chapter 123. The Musket
Starbuck considers shooting Ahab through the door with the same musket Ahab threatened him with. He chickens out declaring since he cannot kill Ahab, he must help Ahab, and he seems to convince himself he is finally all in behind the hunting Moby-Dick, however reluctantly.

Chapter 124. The Needle
Ahab discovers the ship is sailing in the wrong direction because the compass needle reversed in the storm and fashions a new one from a sailcloth needle. And in utilizing his intellect and experience to overcome yet another sign to leave Moby-Dick alone, we see Ahab in his fatal pride.

Chapter 125. The Log and Line
The quadrant was destroyed, the compass needle turned, and now the log and line used to determine the ships speed breaks. Including the storm, they seem to have overcome several challenging opportunities to go home, or at least give up the chase for Moby-Dick. Ahab is touched, a bit disturbed, and sympathetically drawn to a kindred madness in Pip and takes him under his wing. The Manxman calls them one daft with strength and one daft with weakness. The Manxman then determines he should get a new line instead of trying to repair the old one. Are we to understand that these two adjacent ideas mean that some people, like some things, are just too far gone to fix.

David said: Chapter 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor
The Pequod passes yet another aptly named ship, The Bachelor, now cruising around boastfully in great spirits on its way back home after a very successful voyage.

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The Batchelor with every container onboard overflowing with oil is the exact opposite of the Jungfrau or Virgin. Not only has the Batchelor’s crew not encountered Moby Dick, but they don’t even believe in him, so they seem to be foolish in a different way.

A sobering note, though, comes with their answer to the question if they have lost anyone: “Only two islanders.” Only?

David said: As The Bachelor recedes with the wind and The Pequod continues on against it, Ahab shows his human side by looking at a vial of Nantucket sand he keeps in his pocket. Does this show he has goals beyond assuaging his wrath?

*****

Another man might carry a picture of his wife and son, but Ahab carries a vial of Nantucket soundings — I.e., sand/mud/etc from the sea bottom around Nantucket, I believe. I’m not sure what he expects to happen after he finds Moby Dick, but home to him seems to be more the whaling port than his family.

Way back in Chapter 79, someone asked about the title “The Prairie”. I think we finally get an answer in Chapter 114, “The Gilder”, where the ocean is compared to a rolling prairie: “These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling toward the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie...”

The story is really moving along here, with fewer digressions, but an increasing sense the ship is lost and unable to determine where they are, as Ahab’s destruction of the quadrant needed for navigation is then compounded by the typhoon and the storm’s distortion of the compass needle, so it can only be used in reverse, i.e. to sail east, they have to go in the direction the compass shows as west. Ahab is able to make a new, correct compass, but now the log and line needed to determine their speed and distance travelled breaks. “Let Ahab beware of Ahab” (and everyone else beware of him, too)

And we certainly have a lot of prophets in this book — from
Elijah to Gabriel to Pip to Fedallah. Now, who to believe?

I see so many echoes of Shakespeare in these chapters.

Chapter 110: Pip's ravings remind me of Ophelia's madness after Hamlet kills Polonius.

Chapter 117: As David pointed out, Fedallah's prediction echoes the prediction of the witches in Macbeth in that both seem to defy logic.

Chapter 123: echoes Hamlet when he sees Claudius at prayer. He debates whether or not he should kill Claudius for murdering Hamlet senior. He decides against it--just as Starbuck decides not to kill Ahab. And as a result of their inaction, innocent people die.

Tamara wrote: "I see so many echoes of Shakespeare in these chapters.

Chapter 110: Pip's ravings remind me of Ophelia's madness after Hamlet kills Polonius.

Chapter 117: As David pointed out, Fedallah's predict..."

*******

Yes, so many echoes of Shakespeare! I notice it most with Ahab, more in his use of language than his resemblance to a particular character. And I did see the resemblance of Fedallah’s predictions to the predictions in Macbeth as Tamara and David point out. So my expectation is those predictions will come true in a way that Ahab did not expect.

Somewhere way back when, I commented on the fact that other than Ahab, the only people who have seen Moby Dick are Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg. At the time, I wondered if this suggested that the three non-westerners are more in touch with their instincts and/or subconscious levels.

Now I’m wondering if there is more going on here. Is Melville setting up a contrast between the Western valorization of the individual, the ethos of granting primacy to the individual and his/her needs vs. the non-western tradition of giving primacy to the community/the collective by subordinating individualistic tendencies?

Ahab represents the Western ethos of individualism run amok. He sets himself and his goal above the safety of his community.

By contrast, we have the character of Queequeg, for example, who risks his life selflessly to save others and who also seems to understand the limits of individual strength.

I am thinking of Chapter 110, after Queequeg’s recovery, where we are told:

They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.

This suggest to me that Queequeg recognizes the individual has some measure of control in his destiny. But he also understands the limitations, i.e. there are circumstances in which the individual is rendered completely powerless and has to submit to a higher force—something Ahab is unwilling or unable to recognize.

It seems to me Queequeg is more in touch with instinct, with the limitations of the ethos of individualism, and is willing to put his life on the line for the community. He represents a healthy balance in contrast to Ahab whose individual quest has driven him berserk.

But maybe I'm reading too much into this.

On the resemblance to Shakespeare, I thought this was fitting:

(Ahab) "Where wert thou born?"
(Manxman) "In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir."
"Excellent! Thou'st hit the world by that."
"I know not, sir, but I was born there."
"In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it's good. Here's a man from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man, which is sucked in--by what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall butts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So."

I won't pretend to know everything that Ahab is saying here, but the punning reminded me of Shakespeare too.

Tamara wrote: "Somewhere way back when, I commented on the fact that other than Ahab, the only people who have seen Moby Dick are Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg. At the time, I wondered if this suggested that the..."

I agree Queequeg has and provides a social balance that Ahab is lacking. Again and again, Queequeg has come to the rescue, while Ahab cares for nothing but his quest.

I also think Pip provides a contrast to Ahab. Both have experienced a life changing accident, but their reactions are very different. Pip blames himself as we see in his speech to Queequeg in Chapter 110: “Queequeg dies game! I say; game, game, game! but base little Pip, he died a coward; died all a’ shiver; — out upon Pip! Hark ye; if you find Pip, tell all the Antilles he’s a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward! Tell them he jumped from a whaleboat!”

Two questions: who is the one Queequeg called to him and asked for a coffin canoe? Was it Ishmael?

And do we know Ahab’s last name?

And one more question: do we know Pip’s original role on the ship?

Susan wrote: "And one more question: do we know Pip’s original role on the ship?"

I believe he was the cabin boy.

Chapter 110

Pip shock of almost dying made him crazy?

Chapter 112

Someone can explain to me what happened to the blacksmith? I reread this chapter several times and I could not understand what happened to him. At the beginning it's said the his house was robbed (I don't know how word it's used in the original) but when I read his story told by him I could not grasp the sense of it. His story it's kind of poetic to me to understand it.

David wrote: "Chapter 113. The Forge
The harpoon is tempered in the donated blood from the three harpooners and baptized, not in the name of god, but in the name of the devil. "

How the public received this chapter and its kind of black mass rite? I don't know how litterate in latin the public was, so maybe this lack of knowledge make it fly above the radar?

Chris wrote: "Susan wrote: "And one more question: do we know Pip’s original role on the ship?"

I believe he was the cabin boy." Thanks

Rafael wrote: "Chapter 110

Pip shock of almost dying made him crazy?"

Sadly yes.

Rafael wrote: "Chapter 112

Someone can explain to me what happened to the blacksmith? I reread this chapter several times and I could not understand what happened to him. At the beginning it's said the his house..."

I had to read this a couple times too to understand it. I think the blacksmith became an alcoholic and unable to keep up his business, and that’s what’s meant by saying “the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into his family’s heart. It was the Bottle Conjurer! Upon the opening of that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend and shriveled up his home.”

Susan wrote: "Rafael wrote: "Chapter 112

Someone can explain to me what happened to the blacksmith? I reread this chapter several times and I could not understand what happened to him. At the beginning it's sai..."

Oh, thanks. I would reread it with this idea in mind to see if I understand it.

it sounds like the blacksmith's family was actually robbed of everything one night by a robber. But additionally the blacksmith robbed his own family in becoming an alcoholic or, "bottle conjurer". He spent their money on drink which of course robbed the family of the money ill spent, as well as robbing it of the husband and father the family depended upon.

My take on the blacksmith was that alcoholism robbed him and his family of everything they had. By drinking instead of working, his family suffered until they died. I thought the image of a robber was allegorical.

As far as the black mass reference--my guess is that the reading public wouldn't have been shocked at it, though it may have added a little more spice to the story then than it does now.

Bryan wrote: "I thought the image of a robber was allegorical."

Ah yes, I see it now. There was no real "third party" thief at first. The cunning disguisement was that of the bottle conjurer/ alcohol, all along. Thanks Bryan.

David wrote: "Ah yes, I see it now. There was no real "third party" thief at first. The cunning disguisement was that of the bottle conjurer/ alcohol, all along. Thanks Bryan..."

You're welcome--if the circumstances hadn't been so grim, it would almost have been droll that the blacksmith takes to a whaling vessel to escape his demons. Geez, after all I've learned about whaling in the 19th century, I can't see it as an escape from anything.

Tamara wrote: "Somewhere way back when, I commented on the fact that other than Ahab, the only people who have seen Moby Dick are Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg. At the time, I wondered if this suggested that the..."

Oh, I like this comment, Tamara.

Ahab certainly has no concern about anybody but himself. He is supremely egotistical. It is his way or the highway. His crew is stuck, because on the open sea you can't escape. His fate becomes their fate. They are prisoners of his whims. And one gets the sense that he doesn't really feel any obligation toward the owners of the ship either. They are only a means to an end to get to Moby Dick.

Western hyper-individualism, of which Ahab is a prototype, has always struck me more as a form of elitism rather than the opposite of Eastern community concepts. The common man, here represented by the crew, is inter-dependent of necessity, and they forge a community and camaraderie on their own, except for Ahab's boatmen. They are totally separate. What is completely missing on the Pequod is the Western/Christian concept of noblesse oblige, where the leader is the first servant and the contribution of each member of a community is not only reciprocal, but necessary and valued. Instead we have a degradation of men into functionaries.

I find Melville's setting on a ship rather brilliant. On a ship no person is superfluous. The reciprocal nature of teamwork literally keeps you afloat and alive. What happens when this breaks down? Early in the novel we encountered the biblical account of Jonah and the disaster he brought on. He was a paying customer, so it was easy, he had to go. Now we have a rotten captain...

Cphe wrote: "Thought it apt that the carpenter was a "man maker""

I agree.

Chapter 108. Ahab and the Carpenter

Well...more Biblical allusions.

"Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.

I think Ahab is referring to himself--- saying that he himself is the pedlar having sold his soul... the crushing pack I saw as a reference also to Bunyan's "Pilgrim" with the heavy pack of sins.

His soul is dark. He needs inward illumination. "I must have a lantern." ("I am the Light.)

"Carpenter... would'st thou rather work in clay?" (God is the Potter/ Man is the clay.)

"Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?" (Man's sinful nature.)

"...let's finish it before the resurrection fellow comes" (Maybe??? playing on "It is finished" spoken... and then came the resurrection???)

Chapter 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin/ Leaks

Loved this chapter. In an earlier chapter --- I can't find it in this monster of a book --- we had learned that after he had lost his leg, and whilst in a raging fever, parts of Ahab had leaked into other parts of Ahab.

This chapter seems to have what is close to a 'true' conversation between Starbuck and Ahab.

Starbuck to Ahab: "Captain Ahab mistakes" Ahab does mistake.

And I loved the conflating of the casks and Ahab. Both... "a parcel of old hoops." Both leaking.

Starbuck speaks of what's worth "saving." The oil/ the need to wreck vengeance on Moby Dick/ Ahab himself?

What a great paragraph. Ahab has a self-awareness of his condition: "Yet I don't stop to plug my leak; for you can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, even if found, in this life's howling gale?"

I liked, too: "But look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye, my conscience is this ship's keel."

Yet...the keel is not the commander of a ship....and what aspect of Ahab is the commander of Ahab? Who or what is the real owner of Ahab?

There's a part of Ahab --- the rational part --- that can recognize the truth of Starbucks admonition. "Ahab beware of Ahab --- there's something there!" (Note the exclamation point.) Yet... Ahab then reverts to acting through his unconscious: 'Then unconsciously using the musket for a staff..."

Adelle wrote: "Chapter 108. Ahab and the Carpenter

Well...more Biblical allusions.

"Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard wi..."

Thanks for pointing this out — I totally missed the Biblical reference (slaps forehead)

Adelle wrote: "Chapter 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin/ Leaks

Loved this chapter. In an earlier chapter --- I can't find it in this monster of a book --- we had learned that after he had lost his leg, and wh..."

I loved this chapter, too. Ahab’s monomania seems to be steadily increasing (or maybe I should say increasing by leaps and bounds). And yet, Starbuck, steady as ever, recalls him with his words....at least for this chapter.

The chapter regarding the blacksmith's story is interesting and told as an allegory in parts as above stated. I thought it well told..how a desperate burglar stole into the happy home..that desperate burglar being the alcoholism of the blacksmith (i.e. the Bottle Conjuror)...and the sadness of the young wife, oh, as she sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes.....and after the house was sold, the "mother dived down into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed her thither"..how poetically told.

Chapter 123, "The Musket" was quite a chapter of suspense. Ahab has increasingly evidenced the madness that now was at the helm of the ship and that there was no concern for the welfare of the crew. Reminded me of say, a country being led by a mad man and the issue of what to do. Here Starbucks, generally a very even keel and logical man is reduced by desperate thoughts to consider desperate measures, albeit he decides in the end to not go that route.

A little humanity/nostalgia and a bit of his pre-obsessed self perhaps are symbolized in that vial of Nantucket sand of which Ahab peers at after passing the Bachelor; he is momentarily reminded of an earlier life not dictated by the white whale obsession upon seeing the carefree joy evidenced upon the Bachelor, but quickly Ahab discards this sentiment to resume his obsession (Chapter 115). Thus at times logic and a balanced understanding pierces through his thick obsession such as when Starbucks effectively said, " Abab beware of Ahab."

Adelle wrote: " I can't find it in this monster of a book --- we had learned that after he had lost his leg, and whilst in a raging fever, parts of Ahab had leaked into other parts of Ahab.

Chapter 41. Moby-Dick:

. . .and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another; and so interfusing, made him mad.

Susan wrote: "Rafael wrote: "Chapter 112

Someone can explain to me what happened to the blacksmith? I reread this chapter several times and I could not understand what happened to him. At the beginning it's sai..."

Thank you. I reread it with this idea in mind and it was more clear to see its meaning. I guess that my translation messed it up too. Conjurer was not well translated, the translator used a word that make it even more hard to grasp the sentence's meaning.

Chapter 112. The Blacksmith

I loved reading all the comments on the blacksmith chapter.

"Belated, and not innocently..." he becomes aware that his feet are freezing and going numb. Because it says, "not innocently," I take it that Perth was drinking even at this point in his life.

Here I saw one of the Shakespearean similarities Tamara has mentioned. "Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four acts of the gladness, and the one long … fifth act of the grief of his life's drama." Always that dramatic fifth act, yes?

So... I read that as somehow as a result of his frost-bitten feet, the four good things come into his life--- his wife, and his three children.

The fifth act... the drinking destroys it all... However.... I'm unsure how to read that "as yet uncatastrophized fifth act of the grief..." There's yet more grief to come?

I thought Melville was linking Perth and Hephaestus. Both blacksmiths. Both somewhat lame. Both melancholy. Anyway... thought that appropriate.

Way off in outfield... We know from biographical material that Melville's father died in dreadful financial straights and the family suffered most terribly. I wondered, reading this, whether Melville's father was an alcoholic. I googled about, but I couldn't find anything.

Cphe wrote: "I couldn't understand why Ahab didn't have two legs made at the time (a back up in case of misfortune)"

!!! Hadn't occurred to me... but … yeah.

Susan wrote: "Adelle wrote: "Chapter 108. Ahab and the Carpenter

Well...more Biblical allusions.

"Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a p..."

LOL... This group read The Pilgrim's Progress 3-4 years ago. ;-)

Chapter 113. The Forge

I felt such sympathy for Ahab in this chapter. He's so messed up. He can sense Perth's darkness, too... Doesn't want to hear about it, but is aware that it's there. "How come you're not mad? Do the heavens hate thee, that thou cans't not go mad?"

Is going mad a possible default when life is too much? Pip, for instance. Ahab, too... except bits of a non-mad Ahab peak through at times, yes? And his torment: "if thou could'st, {calm my brain}, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my head upon thy anvil, and feel they heaviest hammer between my eyes." OMG

But we know Ahab has pre-planned this. There's usually such a dearth of properly shod racing horses aboard whalers that Ahab had to bring his own supply of steel nail-stubbs with him.

Did you think maybe that harpoon is being forged with Christian AND pagan elements to bring together the total power of both forces?

''When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one... 'A flaw!' rejecting the last one.'" Maybe, I thought, representing the twelve apostles... the twelve, being Judas, was flawed. The Parsee invokes something into the harpoon, as well. And Ahab asks the "pagans" to contribute.

I have been enjoying these last few chapters. We begin to see a little bit more of Ahab and he gets more depth as a character, though I would say he still is a pretty flat character who mostly represents an idea. Melville uses the word "monomania" several times to describe him.

Thanks, Tamara, for pointing out the Shakespearean parallels. Ahab may not have the depth (or redeeming qualities) of King Lear, but he is in a sense a wounded and tragic figure.

And the scene of Starbuck with the musket strongly evokes Hamlet. Even though I knew the outcome, it still had me on edge.

I found the story of the blacksmith fascinating in that it suggested the kinds of people who might have gone out to sea like that, sometimes broken people who wanted to make a new life for themselves.

Melville describes how for some of the men on the ship, wandering the oceans away from civilization was a way of escaping life, an alternative to literal death/suicide. I love the passage where he describes how the

all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them—“Come hither, broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put up thy grave-stone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee!” (ch. 112)

This passage reminded me of the sirens's song in The Odyssey. And it resonates with the idea that begins to take shape in the next few chapters, that Ahab, the ship, and the men are condemned.

Chapter 110. Queequeg in His Coffin
"...while in Nantucket he had chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich war-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was not unlike the custom of his own race..."

I love Queequeg, looking past differences to find an experience with which he can relate.

Susan wrote: "The Batchelor with every container onboard overflowing with oil is the exact opposite of the Jungfrau or Virgin. Not only has the Batchelor’s crew not encountered Moby Dick, but they don’t even believe in him, so they seem to be foolish in a different way.."

I attributed the success of The Bachelor directly to the fact that they do not even believe in MD. They represent the possible life of a Nantucketer like Ahab if he had chosen to believe in something other than MD.

In Chapter 118. The Quadrant, Ahab is described as a frantic old man trampling with his live and dead feet...
Alive and dead. I like that. A man with one foot in the grave.

Chapter 119. The Candles
Stubb singing in the typhoon because he is not a brave man and is trying to keep up his spirits. This reminded me of Chapter 72. The Monkey-Rope which Ishmael described as a humorously perilous situation.

Susan wrote: ...an increasing sense the ship is lost and unable to determine where they are, as Ahab’s destruction of the quadrant needed for navigation is then compounded by the typhoon and the storm’s distortion of the compass needle, so it can only be used in reverse, i.e. to sail east, they have to go in the direction the compass shows as west. Ahab is able to make a new, correct compass, but now the log and line needed to determine their speed and distance travelled breaks. “Let Ahab beware of Ahab” (and everyone else beware of him, too)..."

Do we even know Ahab's compass is correct? Lol, he basically just decrees that his is the correct way, and the men are too afraid to contradict him because their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate.

Ashley wrote: "Susan wrote: ...an increasing sense the ship is lost and unable to determine where they are, as Ahab’s destruction of the quadrant needed for navigation is then compounded by the typhoon and the st..."

That’s an interesting interpretation that Ahab’s compass was wrong. I’d assumed it would be easy to tell since it would show the sun rising in the East instead of another direction.

Ashley wrote: "Do we even know Ahab's compass is correct?."

We will have to wait and see if Ahab finds Moby-Dick or not. :)

Isn't the sun rising from the West a sign in some religions that the end is near?

Ashley wrote: "Susan wrote: "The Batchelor with every container onboard overflowing with oil is the exact opposite of the Jungfrau or Virgin. Not only has the Batchelor’s crew not encountered Moby Dick, but they ..."

I had a somewhat different take about the Bachelor crew not believing in Moby Dick. After all, the Pequod has met lots of ships that have seen or had run ins with Moby Dick. I thought the Bachelor with their good luck and full ship was more like someone who sees the world as all good and doesn’t even acknowledge the bad — or that their success owes anything to luck.

Susan wrote: "I thought the Bachelor with their good luck and full ship was more like someone who sees the world as all good and doesn’t even acknowledge the bad — or that their success owes anything to luck."

That approach seems to be working for the crew aboard the Bachelor. : )

Today, after finally listening to the last chapter of Moby Dick in this section, I read through the comments here. My thanks to all of you for this record. (I also ran through the roughly equivalent section for several years ago.)

After trying more times than I can remember to read this thing from start to finish, I am determined to finish in 2018. I think I have only about two more hours of listening (maybe four?). Anyway, it is at a very doable level for the amount of the month/year that remains.

I have been particularly struck by Melville's similes and metaphors -- his abilities to compare one thing with something else. I do now believe, having once been through it, I could enjoy reading it again. Sections I would definitely skim. But others I am certain I would appreciate far more.

I have enjoyed the group's comments on sorting out the personalities of the characters. I remember when Laurel once led a discussion of War and Peace by asking different contributors to follow different characters. (I think that may have been back in Barnes and Noble book group days.) Especially given the comments you all have made, that could seem to be an interesting way to approach another read of Moby Dick -- I say that for myself, not particularly as any possible future group read, either here or on another board. Who was Stubb? Starbuck? Ahab? Pip? The carpenter? ..... This read became a little too stuffed full of information on whales and whaling for me to grasp the character developments as well.