haj7’s Blog

I thought the ending was ironic in two ways, one with Ahab’s death, and the other with Ishmael’s survival. Ahab’s death seems to be really symbolic in that he was tied to Moby Dick and he drowned. Symbolically, Moby Dick and Ahab had pretty much became one at this time. They were both attached to eachother and unseperable. The one thing that Captain Ahab hated the most was what had killed him, and joined to him.

Another part that was ironic was how Ishmael survived at sea by hanging onto the coffin. Melville made it more than obvious that coffins will play a huge part in the book just by the fact that he tried to include it into every chapter he could. In the beggining of the book, Ishmael was very depressed and always thinking about death, but now, the only thing that kept him alive was death.

In chapter 127, it is written out as a play between Captain Ahab and the Carpenter. The carpenter is in the middle of converting Queequeg’s coffin into a new life buoy because the last one sank and caused the death of a crew member. Ahab really starts to show his sick obsession when he starts talking to the carpenter on how “Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a jack-of-all-trades.” The carpenter seems to be almost weirded out by Ahab by saying “But I do not mean anything sir. I do as I do.”

It seems that Ahab is really obssesed with the carpenter’s abilities to make whatever he wants yet the carpenter doesn’t really think of it that way. He just sees it as a profession and a way of living. This kind of reminds me of Ishmael’s obsession with whaling and how biblical and philosophical it is while the other crew members see it as just a method of putting dinner on the table. Ishmael almost seems to be a good version of Ahab almost like his opposite. Ahab goes on this voyage for the compulsion of hatred and revenge while Ishmael goes on it as a life experience. Ahab seems to connect everything in some kind of dark and scary but philosophical manor while Ishmael looks at everything with curiosity and a sense that he knows everything.

As a final thought, I think that it was also creepy how Ahab chooses to talk to Pip about the “wonderous philosophies of thee!” It almost seems that Ahab and Pip are starting to have a better bond. I wonder if this is going to turn out to be a father-son bond since that Ahab, has a baby child that he never sees and Pip is just an orphan without any parents.

In chapter 110 of Moby Dick we see that Queequeg is really sick and since they are on a whaling ship and it’s the 1800’s he had very little hope. I thought it seemed almost strange for him to want to have all of these preparations for his death. Many people in hospital beds, even though they do have plans for funerals, they usualy try to stray their mind from the fact that they are going to die. However, it turns out that Queequeg ends up being ok and that he actually uses his coffin to keep his belongings in.

     Melville really seems to put an emphasis on coffins and I think that this might be the coffin that all of the forshadows have been leading up to, because most of the coffins in the book were only just names or words on a sign. Now we have a real coffin on this ship. It’s also very ironic that Queequeg still keeps his coffin. It’s like he’s living along with death at his side.

In chapter 105, Ishmael really goes into a discussion about the actual size of whales. Not just saying that they are big, but how this will affect their survival. Leviathans are awed at because of their size. People would probaly see them as ugly dolphins if they weren’t as big as they are. Other huge mammals have died out because of humans. The mammoth is a great example of this. The survival of leviathans is still a huge scientific debate with questions on how much should countries be allowed to whale, and how can we protect these creatures. Ishmael doesn’t think that the whale population isn’t really at risk which is kind of funny because the reason why they are in the Indian ocean is that they have driven sperm whales out of their homes in the Atlantic.

In chapter86, Ishmael takes time to talk about the tail of the leviathan. When people talk about animals, they usually don’t really care to talk much about its tail, but for whales this is not the case. For the leviathan, a tail is just not a tail, it is a symbol of power and uniqueness. Other aquatic animals such as fish don’t have a horizontal tail. Their tales just make them wabble around. Ishmael goes into a great deal on how powerful the leviathan’s tail is and how complex of an “organ” it is to the whale. It seems that with something like a whale that is so magestic and powerful, the smallest aspect of it can really mean a lot.

In these last chapters, we here Ishmael talking about how heroic whaling seems to be. He brings in biblical, and Greek references and it made me think about how small the world is nowadays. It seems that as we advance in technology, our myths and romances seem to dissolve away. There’s nothing really legendary as whaling today. Most jobs are just either common jobs that people don’t even think about. Whaling just seemed to be a great adventure while whaling now seems just like poaching. The world is getting smaller and smaller with every passing day. Moby Dick really seems to emphasis the bond that man and nature used to have.