Moby Dick Essay, Research Paper

Drumhead

Ahab can feel by odor that Moby Dick is close. Climbing up to the chief royal-mast caput, Ahab spots Moby Dick and earns himself the doubloon. All the boats set off in pursuit of the giant. When Moby Dick eventually surfaces, he stoves Ahab & # 8217 ; s boat. The giant is swimming excessively fast off from them and they all return to the ship.

Stating that relentless chase of one giant has historically happened before, Ishmael *comments that Ahab still urgently wants to trail Moby Dick though he has lost one boat. They do sight Moby Dick once more and the sailors, turning progressively in awe of Ahab and caught up in the bang of the pursuit, lower three boats. Starbuck stays to mind the Pequod. Ahab tries to assail Moby Dick caput on this clip, but once more, Moby Dick is exultant. He stoves Ahab & # 8217 ; s ship and interrupt his false leg. When they return to the Pequod, Ahab finds out that Fedallah is gone, dragged down by Ahab & # 8217 ; s ain line. Starbuck tells him to halt, but Ahab, convinced that he is merely the & # 8220 ; Fate & # 8217 ; s lieutenant, & # 8221 ; says he must maintain prosecuting the giant.

. Still on the expression out, the crew spots the white giant for a 3rd clip but sees nil until Ahab realizes, & # 8220 ; Aye, he & # 8217 ; s trailing me now ; non I, him & # 8211 ; that & # 8217 ; s bad. & # 8221 ; They turn the ship around wholly and Ahab mounts the flag himself. He sights the spout and lowers once more. As he gets into his boat and leaves Starbuck in charge, the two work forces exchange a affecting minute in which Ahab asks to agitate custodies with his first made and the first mate attempts to state him non to travel. Perilously, sharks bite at the oars as the boats pull off.

Starbuck, in a soliloquy, plaints Ahab & # 8217 ; s certain day of reckoning. On the H2O, Ahab sees Moby Dick breach. Sing Fedallah strapped to the giant by bends of rope, Ahab realizes that this is the first hearse that the Parsee had forecasted. The giant goes down once more and Ahab rows near to the ship. He tells Tashtego to happen another flag and nail it to the chief flag. The boats shortly see the white giant once more and travel after him. But Moby Dick merely turns about, and caputs for the Pequod at full velocity. He smashes the ship. It goes down without its captain. The ship, Ahab realizes, is the 2nd hearse. Impassioned, Ahab is now determined to strike at Moby Dick with all of his power: & # 8220 ; Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering giant ; to the last I grapple with thee ; from snake pit & # 8217 ; s bosom I stab at thee ; for hatred & # 8217 ; s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all caskets and all hearses to one common pool and since neither can be mine, allow me so tow to pieces, while still trailing thee, though tied to thee, 1000 damned whale! Therefore, I give up the lance! & # 8221 ; After fliting the giant, Ahab is caught around the cervix by the winging line. He is dragged under the sea. Tashtego, meanwhile, is still seeking to nail the flag to the ship & # 8217 ; s spar as it goes down. He catches a sky-hawk in mid-hammer and the shriek bird, folded in the flag, goes down with everything else.

In the Epilogue, Ishmael wraps up the narrative, stating that he is the lone 1 who survives the wreck. All the boats and ship were ruined. Ishmael survives merely because Queequeg s casket British shilling up and becomes his life buoy. A twenty-four hours after the wreck, the Rachel, still cruising for her first lost boy, saves Ishmael.

Comment

Whether Moby Dick the giant continues to swim on after the destructive flood tide is unsure. In Chapter 54 ( The Town- Ho & # 8217 ; s Story ) , the lone chapter that takes topographic point after the sinking of the Pequod, Ishmael refers to the giant & # 8217 ; s immortality. But, it might besides do sense if Ahab and the giant died together, excessively, since their

destinies had been linked since the beginning. First, Ishmael says merely “one” survived the wreck–presumably himself. Second, the novel is, after all, a calamity and, in most calamities, there is a sense of poetic justness. For illustration, the tragic mechanism that dictates that a hero return duty for his ain actions dictates that Ahab dice by his ain manus. And so he is dragged down by the line he throws into the giant out of pride. When the ship is destroyed, Ahab recognizes his ain handicraft, stating unhappily, “Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work.”

But how did we anticipate Ahab to move? He is, after all, ruled by emotions and the bosom. Ahab himself says, & # 8220 ; Ahab ne’er thinks ; he merely feels, feels, feels ; that & # 8217 ; s prickling adequate for mortal work forces! to believe & # 8217 ; s audaciousness. God merely has that right and privilege. & # 8221 ; What seems similar pride to everyone else so & # 8211 ; a wilful refusal to listen to other governments & # 8211 ; is to Ahab really a signifier of respect to God. But Ahab still keeps a hearty sense of pride or proud battle despite the downswing in his destiny. Stating Tashtego to nail another flag to the flag may look excessive, but Ahab can air that his liquors are non flagging if the flag goes up. Once he understands ( and accepts ) what will go on to him, he besides accepts how he is built: & # 8220 ; I Oh, now I feel my topmost illustriousness lies in my topmost grief. & # 8221 ; We feel the extent of his despair. The deepness of his emotions determines the illustriousness of his bequest and work. Remember this spirit of relativism in the image of the Catskill bird of Jove.

The spread between the really emotional Ahab and the distressingly rational Starbuck grows. They see the same events, but while Starbuck says they are bad portents, Ahab thinks they are welcoming. When the giant swims off from the boat, for illustration, Starbuck says that this is the whale allowing them halt this brainsick pursuit. But non Ahab & # 8211 ; it is merely another giant fast one that he has figured out. This unruliness merely shows to Starbuck that & # 8220 ; Moby Dick seeks thee [ Ahab ] non. It is thou, thou that frantically seekest him! & # 8221 ; Not merely do they read the universe in their ain separate ways but the secret plan now physically separates them from each other. Starbuck watches the ship ; Ahab goes away and Hunts. Furthermore, Starbuck wonders whether he can trip his bosom on any profound degree: & # 8220 ; Feel thy bosom, & # 8211 ; beats it yet? & # 8221 ; Starbuck asks himself. & # 8220 ; Stir thyself, Starbuck! & # 8221 ;

But Ishmael does skilfully manage Ahab & # 8217 ; s relationship with the crew. If Ishmael said in Chapter 27 that the crew members were & # 8220 ; Isolatoes & # 8221 ; who were & # 8220 ; federated along one keel & # 8221 ; following Ahab, we can see precisely how they have become dominated by Ahab. They run into each other & # 8220 ; in one concrete hull & # 8221 ; which is & # 8220 ; both balanced and directed by the long cardinal keel all assortments were welded into unity, and were all directed to that fatal end which Ahab their one Godhead and keel did point to. & # 8221 ; Ahab is no longer merely their leader that pulls them along a path ; Ahab is their keel.

Ishmael besides pays attending to the construction behind these chapters. In Ahab & # 8217 ; s interactions with the giant, he grows progressively confrontational. The first lowering was merely like any other, non caring precisely how the patient approached the giant. The 2nd lowering caputs for Moby Dick straight-on. By the 3rd lowering, makes the ship itself ( non merely the boat ) take on the whale head-on. Ishmael has besides folded play into the texture of his novel. The epilogue besides owes much to Shakespearian surveies in which characters like Puck from A Midsummer Night & # 8217 ; s Dream or the buffoon from Twelfth Night present a short soliloquy. This rubric at the terminal completes the frame consequence nicely, since the book opens with commentary by Ishmael.