Category Archives: Week 13: THE END.

Final Project Brainstorm

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What you still need to learn/do for your final project

Honestly, I am not entirely sure what I want to focus on for my final project. But to throw an idea out there, I will be doing a close reading expanding more on obsession and the negative effects it has on a person while specifically focusing on Ahab. I still need to do the research though and figure out what examples I want to use. I would still like to explore other ideas for the final though. And, something I still need to learn is close reading and explaining myself more. Close reading has never been my strong suit and I still have a lot to learn.

Week 13: What’s next….

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What do you need to do/learn for your final project?

I feel like I still need to learn more and understand a bit more about close reading certain things. I’ve been to overwhelmed with the class and by all the information that I have zero idea on what I’m going to do. I’m not much of a creative artsy type of person, so I’m just bee doing an essay. For my final project, I will be discussing about mental health, alcoholism, obsession and more into the mental health part of the chapters, I’ll mostly be focusing on Ahab, Pip and Ishmael depending on how it goes and the subject. Close reading has become such an experience to do in my life and still need practice on it too. I still need to do research and find some examples from the chapters of the book and see where this goes.

Week 13: Blog Post

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What you still need to learn/do for your final project:

I am hoping I can learn from all of the comments our Professor has left on both of my essays about close reading! I want to be able to close read 2 or maybe 3 passages for my final project to show why what I am creating matters! I have never done close reading to this extent before, so I want to put my all into this last project to prove my point for my creative project! I hope everyone will enjoy it as much as I have been enjoying making it! I hope my essay will show the importance of what I am making is very important to the story of Moby Dick.

week 13

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What you still need to learn/do for your final project

I want to first say, how I have never really tapped into close reading like this. This class has definitely made me learn a new set of skills when it comes to writing. I need to work on my defining moments in close reading. I have a clear idea of what I want to say, but I get lost in translation when I’m trying to express why it matters. So I think Dr. Pressman’s comments on both of my essays, I will be taking that to heart to make sure I am delivering the best final I can give to her.

I want my ideas to be fully clear because I have so much to say when it comes to my final idea.

Chapter 135: The end of it all…

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First of all, what the fudge!? How can it just end like that!? As I am happy that this journey of reading Moby Dick is over, I’ll kind of miss it. The ending of obsession for the whale and rage he filled up in his system for years caused it to be his doom. In Moby Dick’s final chapter, Melville transforms the Pequod into a tragedy, revealing on how Ahab’s obsession becomes a force that destroys not only himself, but his entire crew too. The quote, ” And his whole captive force, folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it”, (624) captures the intensity of this destructive power with such intensity. It demonstrates on how Ahab “captive force” suggest that the sailors are no longer in control of themselves, but of Ahab’s consuming will. Melville, also, compares the Pequod as Satan, a figure whose associated with rebellion and pride, just like in his own story on how he fell from the heavens through defiance, Ahab’s ship refuses to sink “till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her,” suggest that his downfall is so intense that it contaminates everything that’s innocent and pure.

Melville’s fascination for using biblical and mythological imagery to portray obsession as a spiritual catastrophe amazes me every time I would read a chapter. I’ll probably (maybe no, maybe so) miss this weird, quirky book.

Chapter 135

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This novel went by so much faster than I ever expected and I am both relieved and sad to be done with it. It was such a wonderful time reading through this book and being able to close read together in class, it is definitely a unique experience that I am extremely grateful for! Reading through the last three chapters, I did not know what to expect, but it was much better than I could have imagined. Truthfully, I found it shocking how little of an appearance Moby-Dick makes throughout the entire novel. However, it also makes sense that these moments between Ahab and Moby-Dick only lasted three chapters and three days. Ahab’s obsession with vengeance against the white whale has been one of the main focuses throughout this novel. It would be expected to have this crazy adventure book ending, but Ahab being killed in the matter of one sentence was something unexpected but perfectly written. The last sentence of chapter 135, shows the power of nature, “then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago” (Melville 624). Melville points out the power of nature and shows how insignificant this moment is compared to the long history of the ocean. Ahab spent such a large amount of his life preparing for this moment, we even see this obsession to kill Moby-Dick completely take over Ahab throughout the chapters. However, the sea is a powerful and vast thing that will keep rolling, even after the crew is lost and Ahab’s vengeful journey fails. All of it meant nothing when looked at from the lens of nature because the sea will carry on as it always has. Melville ends this novel in just three chapters and it is brilliant. After hours and hours of us reading through this book, the build up ends after only three chapters with Moby-Dick. Giving readers the same experience as Ahab of this long awaited anticipation all for it to come to a quick end.

Ahab’s power, an illusion

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In chapter 133, our crew finally comes face to face with Moby Dick, their deadly foe. In the skirmish that ensues with him, Ahab and other mariners fall into the sea after Moby Dick bites their boat in half, and then he starts circling them. In page 599, Melville writes, “Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale’s insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim,–though he could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; helpless Ahab’s head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock might burst.” Our captain, this indomitable force of revenge and hate, seems fragile. In this passage, Melville brings to our attention two important points: Ahab is old and he is missing a leg. While these things have been discussed in the story before, they were really never liabilities, but now they have completely humanized Ahab for us and even made him seem weak. The picture Melville paints for us of old Ahab struggling to stay afloat in the water undercuts the image of the powerful and maniacal sea captain we have been getting up until now. Ahab’s element is sailing the sea, but being in the water itself has made him vulnerable like never before. He is tragically unequipped for this environment although he has spent his life in it. Not only do we realize that Ahab’s greatness has limits because of his physical condition, but because he is a mere human. The phrase, “helpless Ahab’s head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock might burst” prompts us to think about the littleness and inadequacy of man in the face of nature. Even great Ahab is helpless in the sea and his head in the water is compared to a bubble. What is a bubble in the vastness of the ocean? This moment is prompting us to juxtapose the previous idea we had of Ahab, of supernatural power, with his current helplessness brought about by nature. The indomitable spirit of man (or his obsessive hatred) is nothing in the face of the natural world. Our power is an illusion that bursts like a bubble as soon as we touch the water. Melville destroys our previous perception of Ahab and uses imagery to illustrate a larger truth about humanity, that when faced with the savageness of nature, our greatness and power are revealed to be constructs of our own creation, and that though it might be easy for us to forget, nobody can tame the sea.

Ch 133: The Chase, but first the doubloon

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In Chapter 133: The Chase–First Day, Ahab sights Moby Dick at the same time as all three lookouts, and yet claims the doubloon for himself, robbing Tashtego of a victory that all aboard the pequad were motivated to claim from the start of the voyage: 

“‘I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I cried out,’ said Tashtego. ‘Not the same instant; not the same—no, the doubloon is mine, Fate reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have raised the White Whale first(p.595).” 

This comes as no surprise, as at this time Ishmael has gone over the concept of Fast-Fish loose fish and the seedy legal territory of ownership. Ahab has weaponized the promise of the doubloon as treasure, as a promise of wealth and accomplishment, and after having taken advantage of the labor and loyalty of the men on board, shown again that no one matters aboard the pequad, no one own the right to ownership, but him.

At the same time, this moment in which Ahab made a pact with the men on board, which he himself dishonored, is a call to the way the United States has a history of using agreements as a way to take advantage of Indigenous American tribes, and disregard treaties in favor of capitalism and industry. This isn’t a new occurance, a man in power taking advantage of the people he has made promise too, and Melville is reminding his readers of our nation founded on lies and land grants.

Besides Ahab has no need for the promise of wealth, when what he means is to become legend, and the men on the ship are not men, but a means to an end in killing Moby Dick, and attaining his glory. He reminds them once again of their place as he pursues the whale, and with it death, threatening his men: the first thing that but offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me.— Where’s the whale? gone down again.”

Following this vein of thought, Melville using the Pequod as a means to talk about the nation state discusses the foundations of American history, and our legacy, one frought with the bodies of sacrificial lambs, or of those deemed expendable or standing in the way of the government and manifest destiny.

Oneness: In Varieties and in Death

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One of my favorite aspects of this novel is Melville’s attention to detail in his consistent descriptions of everything. We’ve spent a chapter on a singular rope, why Ishmael’s favorite whale is the sperm whale, and how to measure a whale skeleton if you happen upon one. A particular favorite fixation and talent that Melville expresses is the difference in each diverse character throughout the narrative. Based on dialogue, behaviors, and preferences, each character is clearly distinct from the others, able to firmly stand on their own in terms of personality and individual differences. It is for this reason that chapter 134’s description of the “oneness” of the crew is so wholly striking, setting this illustration of the Pequod and her inhabitants apart from any other moment in the entire narrative.

Melville describes how the crew aboard the ship was “one man, not thirty,” displaying a united sense of collective drive, in which “all varieties [of personality and ability] were welded into oneness” that “were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to” (Melville 606). It is interestingly placed in the novel; this oneness appears when it is most necessary (in the ultimate deathly pursuit of Moby Dick). The moments previously, the chapters that covered the blacksmith or carpenter, or when Starbuck so wholly disagreed with Ahab that he held his musket in his palm and contemplated, melted away into this singular oneness that trumped all else. It is in this unity that the ship joins as one, later in the narrative as one, as one shipwreck, and as one death.

The End

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In Chapter 135 “The Chase – Third Day,” we get a lot of excitement. The part of this chapter I would like to focus on is actually the very last sentence of the chapter: “Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago” (Melville 624). I find it difficult to think of a more poetic last sentence to end this whaling expedition; a reminder that the ocean was here long before us, and it will be here long after. Ahab and the rest of the Pequod tried to conquer what is unconquerable, and their need for revenge against Moby Dick is what caused their demise. I think we all saw that one coming. The last sentence of this chapter gives me an almost calming vibe, as if the ocean is unbothered by what has just happened. It has seen many men like Ahab, and has delivered a similar fate to those men who try to defy it. Ahab, the man who considered the ocean his home more so than the land, meets his poetic fate in that very place.

Everything that the novel has shown us, taught us, critique us, and confused us comes to conclusion with this chapter. I feel relieved honestly, but it’s bittersweet because I have never once gone into such an in depth analysis of any material as I have with Moby-Dick this semester. From the days where I couldn’t stop reading it, to the days where I got 5 minutes in and decided that was enough. This novel is truly one of the most daunting and incredible pieces of art I have ever seen, and I’m so glad I don’t have to read it ever again (just kidding, but not really).