Moby Dick Mondays – Week 4

Ti of the blog Book Chatter is sponsoring a challenge/readalong to read the classic Moby Dick. On Mondays, we’ll be posting about our progress. I am listening to the unabridged audiodisks for this book, which my husband listened to and loved.

In the beginning, we saw that the narrator, Ishmael, was both frightened of and appalled by the harpooner Queequeg. After getting to know him a bit though, he decided his prejudice was unfounded. By Chapter Ten, Ishmael has developed an all-out man crush on Queequeg. He cleverly dubs him “The Prince of Whales.” At night in bed they hold a veritable pajama party:

“We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future”.

The next day, the two set out to find a little packet schooner to Nantucket, so that they might find a whaler and go to sea together: bosom buddies forever. On the trip from New Bedford to Nantucket, Ishmael notes the prejudice that greets Queequeg from all sides. But when the boom on the packet ship comes lose, it is only Queequeg who has the presence of mind to dive under it and tie it down, and then to rescue a man knocked overboard by it. Ishmael reports that, subsequently, all men on board voted Queequeg to be a “noble trump” [an admirable person]. But Queequeg, smoking on deck later with Ishmael, only observed facetiously, “We cannibals must help these Christians.”

19th Century Packet Schooner

Once in Nantucket, they settle on the whaler Pequod, with a little guidance from Queequog’s wooden god Yojo, and Ishmael takes Queequog to meet the owners, Captains Peleg and Bildad. In a hilarious sequence, the two old captains struggle to adjust to Queequog. Peleg says:

“Come aboard, come aboard; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog there—what’s that you call him? tell Quohog to step along.”

Queequog demonstrates his harpooning skill, and Peleg is much impressed:

“Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship’s papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats!”

Bildad, a staunch Quaker, insists however on referring to Queequog, an obvious non-Christian, as Son of Darkness:

“Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee… turn from the wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit!”

Peleg then objects:

“Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers—it takes the shark out of ’em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who ain’t pretty sharkish.”

After this humorous interlude, the two leave the ship, and encounter a prophesying man named Elijah, who warns them against taking a voyage with Captain Ahab, the captain of the Pequod. [It should be noted that in the Old Testament, the King to whom the Prophet Elijah issued his dire warnings was named Ahab.]

Elijah

Ishmael tries to dispel the anxiety engendered by Elijah by pronouncing him a humbug, and the two continue on their way.