Moby Dick
Herman Melville
Contributed by Jerrold Mcmenamin
Chapter 74–81
Summary

Chapter 74: The Sperm Whales Head Contrasted View

The two whale heads hanging from the Pequod give Ishmael an opportunity to give a lesson on “practical cetology". The sperm whale has a great well of sperm and attributes like ivory teeth, a long lower jaw, and one external spout hole. Ishmael feels the sperm whale has “more character” than the right whale as well as a “pervading dignity” based on the “mathematical symmetry” of its head. He is in awe of whale’s small eyes on the opposite sides of its head, affording the creature a strange visual perspective. The external portion of whale’s ear is almost the size of a small pinhole.

Chapter 75: The Right Whales Head Contrasted View

The right whale, on the other hand, has bones in its mouth shaped like Venetian blinds. It has a huge lower lip, a tongue, and two external spout holes. He compares the right whale to a Stoic and the sperm whale to a “Platonian".

Chapter 76: The Battering-Ram

Ishmael notes that the blunt, big, wall-like portion of the sperm whale’s head seems to be just a “wad". Actually, inside the thin, sturdy casing is a “mass of tremendous life". Ishmael says that whale’s head, like many other things in nature, derives its strength from its flexibility and ability to be compressed and change shape.

Chapter 77: The Great HeidelburghTun

Further, Ishmael says that the upper part of a whale’s head has two subdivisions: the case and the junk. He likens the case to the “Great HeidelburghTun”, a famous German wine vessel of enormous capacity. The case — a reservoir of highly-prized spermaceti, a valuable wax-like substance found in the oil — is carefully tapped once the whale’s head has been suspended out of water. The junk also contains oil but this oil trapped in a honeycomb of tough fibers.

Chapter 78: Cistern and Buckets

Ishmael then describes the tapping of the case by Tashtego. The sperm is lifted from the whale’s head dangling alongside the ship to the deck by a relay of buckets. While tapping a whale, Tashtego accidentally falls into the case, which is at least 20 feet deep. In a panic, Daggoo clears the tangled lines and tries to get a line inside the head to Tashtego but the tackle holding the head aloft breaks. The carcass falls into the ocean and Queequeg jumps to save Tashtego by cutting into the slowly sinking head and “delivering” Tashtego as a doctor would a baby.

Chapter 79: The Prairie

Ishmael applies the 19th century arts of physiognomy — the art of judging human character from facial features — and phrenology — the study of the shape of the skull, based on the belief that it reveals character and mental capacity — to the whale. He comes to a conclusion that the sperm whale’s large, clear brow gives it the dignity of a god and that its “pyramidical silence” demonstrates its genius. But then Ishmael junks his analysis, saying that he isn’t a professional and dares the reader to decipher the “hieroglyphics” of the sperm whale’s brow.

Chapter 80: The Nut

Ishmael then turns his attention to the whale’s skull, calling the whale’s brow “false”. There isn’t much in the skull except the sperm — the whale's brain is only about ten inches across and is hidden behind forehead, 20 feet away. Ishmael says that he would rather feel a man’s spine than his skull to try to know about him. If creatures were judged by their spines rather than their brains, people would discount the smallness of the whale’s brain and admire the magnitude of its spinal cord. The whale’s hump signifies its indomitable spirit, believes Ishmael.

Chapter 81: The Pequod Meets the Virgin

The Jungfrau (Virgin) has run out of oil as she has had no success in catching whales in recent past. Her captain boards the Pequod to beg for some. Ahab seeks information about the White Whale but the Jungfrau has no clue. Just as the captain of Jungfrau steps off the Pequod’s deck, whales are sighted and the captain goes after them desperately. The Pequod also gives a chase and succeeds in harpooning a slower whale before the Germans can catch it. This whale is old, blind, and covered with growth. The crew finds an ancient-looking stone harpoon point on its flesh. The carcass is brought alongside the ship but soon the crew realises that the whale is sinking and dragging the ship down with it. Ishmael says it is impossible to predict which whale will sink. Meanwhile, the inexperienced crew of the Jungfrau starts chasing a finback. To the unskilled observer a finback resembles a sperm whale but is too fast a swimmer to be caught.

Analysis

Ishmael is simply trying to describe the whale heads accurately but is soon tempted into making imaginative comparisons between the heads and schools of classical philosophy ("Stoic" and “Platonian”). Phrenology and physiognomy, popular in the nineteenth century, are only pseudo-scientific. Physiognomy was widely used in the study of criminal behavior and as a justification of discrimination against the poor and against certain racial groups. Similarly, phrenology was also used to justify racial inequality and gave rise to the judgmental terms “highbrow” and “lowbrow”. As such, these disciplines which developed out of subjective and therefore biased principles hardly constitute rational inquiry. Ishmael continuously probes deeper when it comes to the whales: from the outer surface of the skin to the blubber and from the outer skull to the “nut” or brain. This inward looking tendency suggests an attempt to get at the heart of things and recalls Ahab’s statement that he must “strike through the mask” or outward appearance. The narrator explicitly connects this mode of investigation to reading. He says phrenology and physiognomy are just alternate forms of reading, instead of reading books, one reads skulls and faces. “I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can,” Ishmael challenges his reader to make sense of the bumps and curves of Moby Dick. The link-up between reading and pseudo-sciences is a warning that reading a book is subject to the reader’s own biases. The multiple readings of the whale’s head, based on a different discipline or a different set of principles, is a pointer that any single approach is insufficient and that an interdisciplinary approach may give the best interpretations. The rescue of Tashtego from the sinking whale’s head is one of the most unusual and dramatic moments of the novel, both in terms of the action itself and the language used to describe it. Likening it to the process of rebirth, Ishmael calls it an exercise in “obstetrics". This depiction of such a dramatic incident recalls Ishmael’s earlier notion that whale-hunters are men already dead. Like the biblical Lazarus, Tashtego has died and been reborn and that any extra days of his life are a gift. His 'rebirth' also parodies religious images of resurrection. Tashtego is “delivered” from death not by Christ but by a fellow man — a non-Christian at that. Finally, Ishmael’s obstetrics comparison shows a heightened level of language play that characterises much of the novel. As the Pequod workers stay together, their experience metaphorically covers all aspects of life, from birth to sexual maturation to death. Ishmael’s language reflects this broad experience and straddles between the crude speech of sailors, the aesthetics of the novel, and the genteel sensibilities of Melville’s 19th century reader. The meeting with the Jungfrau is subtly humorous, as the “virgin” ship would have no need for an obstetrician. The Jungfrau and the Pequod can alternatively be taken as innocence and experience, respectively. The naive Jungfrau chases illusions and engages in frivolous activities, while the more worldly-wise Pequod single-mindedly chases death. The Pequod and the Jungfrau competing for a whale provides one of the most dramatic incidents of foreshadowing in the novel. The dead whale seems to be taking its revenge by sinking the Pequod intentionally. The description of the dying whale and the creature’s human-like suffering proves that the natural world is as vengeful as Ahab.

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