July 1, 2019 - Chapter Forty-seven


This is a short but suspenseful chapter, although it doesn’t seem as if it I is going to be this way when the chapter begins. At the start, Ishmael (returned as narrator) is helping Queequeg weave a mat (thus the chapter’s title). Melville makes a fairly overt allusion to the Fates, given the roles of the two men in the action they’re undertaking. The question is where the third of the three Fates would be.

Suddenly, Tashtego yells “Thar she blows” to indicate that he sees a whale, and crew gets ready to pursue it. However, Ahab appears with five dark-skinned men whom the crew has not seen before – Melville describes them as “five dusky phantoms.” Well, at least now we know whom we heard in an earlier chapter from below.

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