July 6, 2019 - Chapter Fifty-four (pp. 239-245)


This chapter is the longest in the novel and involves Ishmael telling the story of a mutiny on a ship called the Town-Ho. What’s curious about this story within the story is that, as presented to us as the readers of Moby Dick, the entire tale is told within quotation marks, since it is Ishmael’s recounting of his telling of the story some time earlier in Lima, Peru, to an entirely different group of people. I.e., it is the story of a story being told.

To complicate matters, Ishmael was not present on the Town-Ho when the mutiny occurred. Therefore, the entire story is hearsay so the reliability of the story is heavily questionable. In this regard, the chapter is reminiscent of Faulkner’s novel Absalom! Absalom!, in which the central story of incest and murder in the 19th century American South is told and retold over the course of the novel, in one prominent case by a person who took no part in it whatsoever.

Clearly, Melville wants us to take the story with a grain of salt. The question is why.

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