on "the Loom of Time." (The threads of the warp are fixed like necessity.
Man has limited free will: he can interweave his own woof crossthreads into
this fixed structure. When Queequeg's sword hits the loom and alters the
overall pattern, Ishmael calls this chance.) What jolts him out of his
reverie is Tashtego's call for a whale. Suddenly, everyone is busied in
preparations for the whale hunt. Just as they are about to push off in
boats, "five dusky phantoms" emerge around Ahab.
Chapters 48-54
Summary
These chapters return us to the action of Moby-Dick. We meet Fedallah for
the first time, described as a dark, sinister figure with a Chinese jacket
and turban made from coiling his own hair around his head. We also meet for
the first time the "tiger-yellow ... natives of the Manillas" (Ahab's boat
crew) who were hiding in the hold of the Pequod. The other crews are
staring at the newly discovered shipmates, but Flask tells them to continue
doing their jobs{that is, to concentrate on hunting the whale.
The Pequod's first lowering after the whale is not very successful.
Queequeg manages to get a dart in the whale but the animal overturns the
boat.
The men are nearly crushed by the ship as it passes looking for them,
because a squall has put a mist over everything.
The chapter called The Hyena functions as a mooring of sorts{a self-
conscious look back that puts everything in perspective. In this chapter,
Ishmael talks about laughing at things, what a hyena is known for. Finding
out that such dangerous conditions are typical, Ishmael asks Queequeg to
help him make his will.
Ishmael then comments on Ahab's personal crew. Ahab's decision to have his
own boat and crew, says Ishmael, is not a typical practice in the whaling
industry. But however strange, "in a whaler, wonders soon wane" because
there are so many unconventional sights in a whaler: the sheer variety of
people, the strange ports of call, and the distance and disconnectedness of
the ships themselves from land-based, conventional society. But even though
whalemen are not easily awe-struck, Ishmael does say "that hair- turbaned
Fedallah remained a mufied mystery to the last." He is "such a creature as
civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams,
and that but dimly."
Ishmael then focuses on Fedallah. On the masthead one night, the Parsee
thinks he sees a whale spouting. The whole ship then tries to follow it,
but the whale is not seen again until some days later. Ishmael calls it a
"spirit-spout" because it seems to be a phantom leading them on. Some think
it might be Moby Dick leading the ship on toward its destruction. The ship
sails around the Cape of Good Hope (Africa), a particularly treacherous
passage.
Through it all, Ahab commands the deck robustly and even when he is down in
the cabin, he keeps his eye on the cabin-compass that tells him where the
ship is going.
They soon see a ship called "The Goney," or Albatross, a vessel with a
"spectral appearance" that is a long way from home. Of course, Ahab asks
them as they pass by, "Have ye seen the White Whale?" While the other
captain is trying to respond, a gust of wind blows the trumpet from his
mouth.
Their wakes cross as both ships continue on. The Pequod continues its way
around the world, Ishmael worries that this is dangerous{they might just be
going on in mazes or will all be "[over]whelmed." Ishmael then explains
that these two ships did not have a "gam." A gam, according to Ishmael, is
"a social meeting of two (or more) Whale-ships, generally on a cruising-
ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by boats' crews:
the two captains remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two
chief mates on the other."
The Town-Ho's Story is a story within the larger story of Moby-Dick. During
a gam with the ship Town-Ho (which they encounter after the Goney), a white
sailor on the Town-Ho tells this story to Tashtego who shares it with all
the men in the forecastle. Ishmael announces at the beginning of the
chapter that he is telling us what he once told it to some friends in Lima.
The basic story concerns Radney, a mate from Martha's Vineyard, and
Steelkilt, a sailor from Bufialo who have a con ict on board the Town-Ho, a
sperm whaler from Nantucket. Steelkit rebels against Radney's authority,
assaults the mate (after the mate attacks him), and starts a mutiny. The
mutineers are punished and released, but Steelkilt wants revenge. The ship
runs into Moby Dick and, in the process of trying to harpoon him, Radney
falls out of the boat. Moby Dick snatches him in his jaws. Ishmael's
listeners don't necessarily believe him, but he swears on a copy of the
Four Gospels that he is telling the truth.
Chapters 55-65
Summary
Here, Melville describes poor representations of whales. To a whaleman who
has actually seen whales, many historical, mythological, and scientific
sources seem inaccurate. As a result, says Ishmael, "you must needs
conclude that the great Leviathan is the one creature in the world which
must remain unpainted to the last." The only solution Ishmael sees is to go
whaling yourself. The next chapter tries to find some acceptable
depictions. To Ishmael's taste the only things that are anywhere close are
two large French engravings from a Garneray painting that show the Sperm
and Right Whales in action. The following chapter tries to expand the
discussion of representations of whales to include whales in various media.
Ishmael then talks about how whalemen have been known to make scrimshaw.
Whalemen who deal with whales so much start seeing whales everywhere, which
is why he mentions stars.
The Brit chapter brings back the encyclopedic cetology chapter type. Brit
is a minute yellow substance upon which the Right Whale largely feeds.
Ishmael uses the chapter as a platform on which to talk about contradictory
views of the sea (frightening "universal cannibalism") and the earth
("green, gentle, and most docile" land). Past the field of Brit in the
water, Daggoo thinks that he sights Moby Dick. It is a false alarm,
however, and it is only a giant squid.
In preparation for a later scene, says Ishmael, he will explain the
whaleline. Made of hemp, this rope is connected to the harpoon at one end
and free at the other so that it can be tied to other boats' lines. Because
it whizzes out when a whale is darted, it is dangerous for the men in the
boat.
We then return to more action, where Stubb kills a black sperm whale.
Ishmael vigorously describes the gore to us. In The Dart, Ishmael
backtracks, describing what a harpooneer does and how he uses a dart.
Freely giving his opinion on whaling technique, Ishmael says that mates
should throw both the dart and the lance because the harpooneer should be
fresh, not tired from rowing. Then, to explain the crotch mentioned in the
previous chapter, Ishmael backtracks again to describe the notched stick
that furnishes a rest for the wooden part of the harpoon.
Ishmael then returns to the plot: Stubb wants to eat the freshly killed
whale, although most whalemen do not. (Usually the only creatures that eat
whale meat are sharks.) He calls on the black cook Fleece to make his
supper and make the sharks stop eating the whale esh. In a sermon to the
sharks, the cook tells them that they ought to be more civilized. Stubb and
the cook get into a folksy religious discussion. He then likens Stubb to a
shark. Ishmael then feels that he must describe what whale is like as a
dish. Doing a historical survey of whale-as-dish, Ishmael remarks that no
one except for Stubb and the "Esquimaux" accept it now. Deterrents include
the exceedingly rich quality of the meat and its prodigious quantities.
Furthermore, it seems wrong because hunting the whale makes the meat a
"noble dish" and one has to eat the meat by the whale's own light. But
perhaps this blasphemy isn't so rare, says Ishmael, since the readers
probably eat beef with a knife made from the bone of oxen or pick their
teeth after eating goose with a goose feather.
Chapters 66-73
Summary
These chapters get into the minutiae of whaling technique. The Shark
Massacre describes how sharks often swarm around dead whale carcasses,
forcing whalemen to poke them with spades or kill them. Even when sharks
are dead, they are often still dangerous: once, when Queequeg brought one
on deck for its skin, it nearly took his hand off. There's no sacred
Sabbath in whaling, since the gory business of cutting in occurs whenever
there is a kill. Cutting in involves inserting a hook in the whale's
blubber and peeling the blubber off as one might peel off an orange rind in
one strip. Discussing the whale's blubber, Ishmael realizes that it is
dificult to determine exactly what the whale's skin is. There is something
thin and isinglass-like, but that's only the skin of the skin. If we decide
that the blubber of the whale (the long pieces of which are called "blanket-
pieces") is the skin, we are still missing something since blubber only
accounts for 3/4 of the weight of the blanket-pieces. After cutting in, the
whale is then released for its "funeral" in which the "mourners" are
vultures and sharks. The frightful white carcass oats away and a "vengeful
ghost" hovers over it, deterring other ships from going near it.
Ishmael backtracks in The Sphynx, saying that before whalers let a carcass
go, they behead it in a "scientific anatomical feat." Ahab talks to this
head, asking it to tell him of the horrors that it has seen. But Ahab knows
that it doesn't speak and laments its inability to speak: too many horrors
are beyond utterance.
The chapter about the Jeroboam (a ship carrying some epidemic) also
backtracks, referring back to a story Stubb heard during the gam with the
Town-Ho. A man, who had been a prophet among the Shakers in New York,
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