In chapter 98, “Stowing Down and Clearing Up,” Melville writes about the last step of processing the oil of a hunted whale. He tells us that when the oil is finally put away into barrels and these are stored away in the “bowels of the ship,” the whole vessel is scrubbed clean until it looks like “some silent merchant vessel, with a most scrupulously neat commander” (468). No trace is left of the bloody ordeal that was to extract oil from this whale. However, we find that this does not last for long. In page 469, Melville writes, “[T]hey only step to the deck to carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, and in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the combined fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works; when, on the heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless diary room of it; many is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by the cry of ‘There she blows!’ and away they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life.” This lengthy quote is a representation of the endless cycle of war and peace experienced by a nation. The sailors, or citizens, “only step to the deck to carry vast chains…cut and slash and…be smoked and burned anew by…the equatorial sun and equatorial try-works.” This first part of the passage describes a scene of physical toil, violence, and injury, all elements of a war. The sailors toil and suffer, and the language of “equatorial” fires is geographic in nature because this is the reality around the whole world. The sun is nature against man, while the try-works are man against himself, maybe weapons of our own creation. There is suffering in life that is natural and other that is man made, but it is observable equally around the world. Then comes the peace, and the sailors “have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless diary room of it.” The ship once again serves as a representation of a nation-state, and this section describes peace time, where the gore has been scrubbed clean and everything appears to be in order; where the land has transformed from a battle ground to a dairy room, a clean place of nurturing, a fertile land that will feed and grow the population. But nothing lasts forever, and the peace is broken by “the cry of ‘There she blows,'” a battle cry that snaps our “poor fellows,” who were enjoying the calm, the clean, the civilization (they were “buttoning the necks of their clean frocks”) out of a dream and sends them straight to the trenches once more. “[A]way they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again,” a quote that shows a type of melancholy, indicating the weary reality that is partaking in the repetition of a violent routine that one does not willingly enter into, but that seems the only option for survival in society. Finally, Melville writes, “Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life.” This section reflects a cycle of suffering and calm that we have accepted as an inescapable truth of life, and takes it to a new scale by including the perpetration of suffering upon others as a continuation of this truth. In other words, Melville comments on our acceptance of war as a normal event which reflects the belief that life not only means to suffer, but also to make others suffer from time to time. This endless cycle we have created in our societies leaves too much to be desired, so Melville invites us to reflect on it and maybe think if there are no better options.