Towards the beginning of chapter 134 I read this part which had their impending doom coming for them. “Clinging to a spar with one hand some reached for the other with impatient wavings; others, shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to seek out the thing that might destory them.” This foreshadows what is to come of their fates in just one more chapter as they finally come across the whale.
These lines prove that these men were ready for what was to come upon them with this mission to find and kill this whale. “Clining to a spar” illustrates that these men were armed with the means to kill this whale with their harpoons. “Impatient wavings” shows that their are waiting to see this whale so they can kill him immediately and get this mission over so that they can get their money that Ahab promised them. Some of their other crewmates waited patiently as they were “shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight” showing that they were waiting for the sun to go down as they were in their positions waiting to see the whale breech in the water. They were very adamant about finding this whale as this was Ahab’s wish, to find and kill the whale even if it was dangerous. The line “all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate” shows that these men were in a vulnerable position abord the Pequod as they were hunting down the thing that would surely destory them easily. They were all in their designated spots in case the whale was seen to that they can easily take him down. Ahab was so crazy that they did all of this for a whale that he was so passionate about killing that they “strove through that infinate blueness” the world’s many oceans so that he can take vengance against this whale. This Moby Dick is the most dangerous and powerful creature in this ocean and they wanted “to seek out the thing that might destory them” which again proves they would do all of this for money and passion.
Ahab and these men were so adamant about finding this whale that it does lead to their destruction in the end. This foreshadowing shows us that they are doomed in the end. They won’t return home, Ahab won’t get his victory, but they did so much to get to this point.
Hey Zoe,
Another way to think of it is that they may not have been fully aware of their impending demise, but that they were anxious to see this mission’s conclusion despite everything trying to stop them. The whale was staying below the ocean, the sun was badly hindering their vision, and eventually even the wind was fighting against them – “the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own white wake.” (614) Ishmael’s foreshadowing is always his own, as the only person who survived the ordeal of Moby-Dick. While there are characters aware of their own deaths – Ahab, Parsee, Pip, Queequeg, Starbuck – I think that there are just as many people who don’t or simply choose not to, such as Flask.
Your analysis is interesting regardless! Thank you for the great post.
-Kit Jackson
Hi Zoe,
The foreshadowing throughout this book is so prevalent through Ahab. We know his obsession with vengeance and his willingness to sacrifice his crew to make Moby-Dick pay for what he has taken from him. He was so willing to die trying that, in the end, he did.
-Kate Fletcher