Moby Dick Chapters 81-100
Chapters 81-100
The Pequod soon encounters a German whaling boat called the Jungfrau. The Captain of the ship comes aboard to seek some oil for his lamp and has no news of Moby Dick. As he is returning to his ship, a cry is raised at the sight of a pod of whales, among them a large whale with a missing fin. Both ships spill out their boats and a hearty chase ensues, and although the Germans have the advantage of time, the whaleboats of the Pequod are able to sink three harpoons into the whale before the German whalemen. The whalemen of the Pequod kill the beast and retrieve it to their boat only to have it sink into the ocean, a phenomenon rare in the sperm whale but common among the other species of whales.
Ishmael traces the legends around whales in popular cultures and religions, he claims Perseus to be the first whaleman for slaying the leviathan that sought to kill Andromeda. He also believes the story of St. George and the dragon is based on the struggle of the saint with a whale and not a dragon. Lastly, he claims both Heracles, and Vishnu to the clan of whalemen as well.
He then discusses how some of the Nantucketers disbelieve in the Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale. The areas of the dispute being the anatomy of the whale that the story describes and the distance the whale covers during Jonah's time in the whale.
The next time the whales are sighted, the distance between the ship and the whales is much greater and although they can sink one iron into a whale, the boats are seemingly unable to catch up to the creature. Stubbs makes use of the lance, a lighter and lengthier implement, and pitches it from the boat at the whale. This practice is called pitchpoling, and Stubbs strikes the whale a mortal wound.
The spout of the whale is an intriguing subject to Ishmael, for it is not fully known what the contents of the spout are. He talks about the caution with which all whalemen treat the spout for others that have sprayed by that mist has contracted some pain from its contact. He describes the practice of breathing that the beast follows, whereupon it retires from the depths of the ocean to fill its lungs of air and does so over a span of some eleven minutes. This duration differs among whales of different sizes, and it is this breathing of the whale that brings it within the reach of man's weapons, and the only reason why man can kill that majestic animal.
The Pequod sails through the straits of Sunda and finds a huge host of whales clustered together, spouting like the chimneys of a great metropolis. The Pequod chases after the herd of whales through the narrow water body, and they soon realize that they are themselves being chased by pirates, this only causes them to further speed their hunt of the whales. The herd suddenly stops once it reaches the open ocean, and the Pequod sends forth its whaleboats, and the harpooners begin their work. Queequeg manages to hit a whale, but the harpoon comes off as the whale bounds inward towards the depths of the herd. The whaleboat suddenly finds itself afloat in a quiet and transparent part of the ocean where the young whale calves and cows rest, the cows are nursing their young while some of the older calves emerge out of the water to examine the whaleboat. The silent reverie of the sailors is broken as the whales suddenly begin to panic when one of their number, being wounded by a waif, swings the deadly weapon about in the water harming his companions. The herd soon shoots off with vigor, and the Pequod is able to claim but one of the wounded whales.
As the Pequod advances it happens upon a French whaling ship called the Bouton de Rose, the Rose Bud. The French whalemen are hard at work on two whales, one of which is a blasted whale, and Stubbs believes it to be one of the whales they had hurt when they had hunted the herd. The other whale is a decrepit and shrunken thing due to dyspepsia, but Stubbs expects that this whale has inside it some ambergris. Resolving to gain access to the ambergris whale, Stubbs sets out and first enquires from the Frenchmen whether they had sighted Moby Dick, the white whale. Upon learning that they had sighted no such whale, Stubbs goes aboard the ship after having a conversation with the chief mate. The chief mate is unaware of the ambergris, and wishes to cut loose the stinking whales from the ship but is unable to do so due to the new captain that is onboard. Stubbs and he concoct a plan to convince the captain that the whales are likely to cause disease at prolonged contact, and just as the French whaling ship sails away after thanking Stubbs for his kindly intervention, Stubbs breaks into the cavity of the whale and extracts from it the precious ambergris.
Ambergris is a precious substance used by the perfuming industry and it is treasured for its distinctively pleasant smell. Ishmael also disputes the claim that whaling is a stinky business by explaining that this was likely to be a presumption made due to the practice of whaling ships on the northern seas. The ships in the region were unable to melt the fat extracted from the whale on board the ship and had to carry with them the stinking and decaying fat cut from the whales. The whaling ships in the southern waters, like the Pequod, melted the fat into oil within 50 days of catching the whale, and so never carried with them any strong odors, given the fact that oil so made was scentless.
When the whaleboats are lowered some of the sailors are required to stay aboard the vessel and man it, one such sailor is Pip, a young black boy. Stubbs's adventure with the ambergris had caused one of his oarsmen to sprain an arm, and so Pip was invited to his whaleboat. The next time the boat was lowered for a hunt, Pip jumped out of the boat as soon as the harpoon was struck to the whale, the whale entangled him and Stubbs was forced to command the cutting of the line to preserve Pip's life. Stubbs bids Pip to never abandon the boat and thinks the matter concluded, but the next time the whaleboats are lowered Pip does the same, however, he manages to stay clear of the whale line. Stubbs abandons Pip to chase his whale, and Pip is rescued much later by the Ship but in the process of being stranded in the sea loses his sanity.
Ishmael helps keep the congealed blubber, extracted from the newly hunted whale, in liquid form by squeezing it with his hands. He loses himself to the feeling and smell and ends up squeezing the hands of his fellow sailors.
The mincer clads himself in the skin of the whale's large black member that Ishmael compares to Queequeg's idol Yojo when he minces the horse pieces of blubber from the whale. The American whaling ships are equipped with the try-works, that are used to warm pots for converting the minced blubber into oil. The try-works are at first lit with wood, but later use the whale blubber itself to keep the fire burning. Ishmael nearly causes the boat to capsize as he becomes disoriented due to the fire of the try- works and the dark sea while he is manning the tiller of the boat.
Ahab becomes increasingly impatient for Moby Dick, he paces the decks of the ship and stares at the Doubloon nailed to the mast as a reward for the sailor who sights the beast. The doubloon captivates all the sailors of the ship, including, Starbuck, Stubbs, and even odd Pip.
Ahab takes his boat to a newly sighted English ship, whose captain flashes him an arm made of whalebone when Ahab inquires about Moby Dick. The captain tells the Ahab the story of how Moby Dick had appeared first to him when he was hunting a pod of whales, the animal had inserted himself into the ongoing hunt, and the Captain had struck him with a harpoon. The whale had then destroyed the captain's boat, and the ensuing struggle caused his arm to be caught in the harpoon he had stricken. The surgeon aboard the ship had cut the arm in fear of infection. The English vessel had sighted the whale once again, and Ahab becomes ever more aggravated as the story of the arm goes on. His only concern is Moby Dick and he leaves promptly upon discovering the direction in which the whale had been headed.
Analysis
The competition with the German whaling vessel in hunting a whale is an important point in the novel, for the descriptions of the whale's death are comparative to human suffering. It can be hypothesized that this foreshadows the revenge that the natural world will enact in retribution for the cruel killing of this whale.
The story of Jonah and the whale is yet again discussed by Ishmael, however, in comparison to Father Mapple who first reveals the story to the reader in the earlier chapters, Ishmael and the other authors that he cites fail to hone in on the underlying message of the tale. Father Mapple had drawn attention to the core moral value that the story tries to impart, while these other authors ignore its purpose and instead expand on minute details of the tale.
The chapters dealing with the details of the kinds of schools that Whales can be found in, and the relationship between mother and child whales serves to humanize the whale. It allows the reader to ascribe human traits to the animal and so forces one to consider that the nature of whaling is cruel and even murderous.
The captain of the Samuel Enderby serves as a perfect contrast for the monomaniacal Captain Ahab. Both sailors have lost a limb to Moby Dick, but Captain Boomer accepts the loss and has no desire to enact revenge on the animal. The crew and the Captain of Samuel Enderby present us with an alternative narrative of suffering a major injury due to the whale, theirs seems like a happier way of life than that of those aboard the Pequod.
