After reading chapter 78, one part that stuck out to me was its ending paragraph where, after Tashtego is rescued by Queequeg from the head of the sperm whale, Ishmael imagines what dying in it would feel like:

“Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti … Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled—the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. (Melville 377)

I thought this paragraph was interesting because even though we see this attempt at romanticizing death by drowning “in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti,” Melville also compares it to dying in honey. The mention of the honey-hunter can also be an allegory for greed: Melville reminds us that men have sought out precious things in the hopes that they’d grow more powerful if they have more of it, but what happens if you end up having too much of one thing?

Melville uses the unlikely scenario of the honey hunter and the tree’s honey trove as an example of how this desire for material wealth can result in one’s demise. In the passage above, the honey-hunter discovered the honey trove, but after “leaning too far over, [the honey] sucked him in, so that he died embalmed.” (Melville 377) Like spermaceti, honey is a sweet, viscous substance that is nearly impossible to swim in due to its viscosity, and it can certainly “smother” a person should they fall into it. Despite this, it is often sought out for its health benefits, just like how spermaceti is sought out for its versatility and high selling price.

The irony of it is that we tend to search for valuable things could place us higher in the social hierarchy, yet we don’t even realize its potential dangers because we typically only see it in small amounts. Spermaceti is like honey; sweet and harmless in small amounts, but suffocating and dangerous when there’s a pool’s worth of it. As demonstrated with Tashtego and the honey hunter falling into a pool of spermaceti and honey respectively, greed can often lead to a precious, “delicious death.”