Summer of Dick

In the end, it is the Rachel – the ship we saw many chapters ago that was searching for the lost son of the captain – that rescues our sole survivor Ishmael. He quotes the Book of Job – specifically the words of a servant of Job who reports to Job that his home and family have been destroyed. In short, this servant cum messenger is the sole survivor in the same way that Ishmael is of the Pequod . For his own part, Ishmael likens himself to the lost son of the Rachel ’s captain. And here ends the novel. Having set a goal for myself of finishing this novel between Memorial Day and Labor Day, 2019, I have met it.

And here it ends, and the white whale wins. He charges the Pequod head on and destroys the ship. Ahab, disgusted with the turn of events, casts his harpoon at Moby Dick, and though the harpoon strikes the whale, the result is that the whale drags Ahab and the remaining sailors into a whirlpool that pulls everything down into the sea with it. Remarkably, after the water settles, the sea appears as if nothing had happened there, as it has been for “five thousand years.” The final scene strongly implies that what we have witnessed is merely the course of nature. Whalers come and go (as does whales), but the sea continues forever.

Lest we think we’ve seen the last of Fedallah, he appears in this, the third (and final) day of the hunt of Moby Dick – in a manner of speaking. Rather, he appears lashed to the white whale’s back when he sounds once again. Ahab cries, “"Aye, Parsee! I see thee again.—Aye, and thou goest before; and this, this then is the hearse that thou didst promise.” Ahab might believe he will survive this final encounter; he certainly believes that this third day will be the final day of the hunt. There is, after all, a certain finality about the number three.

Ahab comes out from under his boat short one leg and one Parsee – his ivory leg has snapped off, and Fedallah is apparently gone. As much a mystery as Fedallah and his henchmen were when they first appeared in the novel, that mystery is no less enigmatic now that he is dead. One wonders why Melville felt it was necessary to introduce the character of Fedallah at all – what purpose the character ultimately serves. Could it be that Melville was merely trying to “darken” the pall around Ahab as he hunts the whale? If that’s the case, it seems clumsy in hindsight.

On the second day of the hunt, Ahab and the other crew men are able to sink three harpoons into the white whale but still don’t take him out. Instead, Moby Dick destroys Ahab’s boat, giving us a clear sense that this dispute is personal not just for Ahab. It does raise the question of how well whale intelligence was understood at the time the novel was written and published. We know today how smart sea mammals are – dolphins are purportedly the smartest, but whales are not considered to be slouches by any sense. Is Melville personifying the whale to some extent, or is he merely recognizing the species’ inherent intelligence?

Toward the end of this chapter, we are reminded of the gold doubloon that Ahab had nailed to the mast and promised to whomever sees the white whale first on the day the whale is killed. Now, however, Ahab adds, “and if on that day I shall again raise him, then, ten times its sum shall be divided among all of ye!” Clearly, the stakes are much higher now that the whale has been sighted and chased for a day. Lest we think that his near-death encounter with the whale will deter Ahab, we are sorely mistaken.

Finally, the chase begins. In the first part, which ends with the destruction of Ahab’s boat by the white whale (he said ironically), we get this: “But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge.” As we have already been told, Moby Dick isn’t actually all white, as the image below of said bridge shows us. The question is why the whale is referred to as white when it clearly isn’t. Curious readers should probably consult the chapter entitled “The Whiteness of the Whale” once again.