July 2, 2019 - Chapter Forty-eight


Finally the action and a solution to an earlier puzzle. The second issue first: The men smuggled on board some type ago were apparently four-man dark-skinned whalers plus an Asian Muslim-looking -sounding man named Fedallah (pictured below). They emerge as the first whale is sighted, and a chase ensues that ends with the whale escaping and with the pursuit boat of Starbuck destroyed as the men in it jump overboard and reboard the Pequod.

So the first earnest whale hunt of the novel ends with a failure and with near death for some men of the crew. Melville has been fairly ham-handed with his foreshadowing, so we might take this scene as a hint of what’s to come.


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