Reading the Chunksters discussion
Moby Dick
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Moby Dick - Chapters 55-81
Chapters 58-60Chapter 58 - Brit
In this chapter Ishmael describes the krill type organism that the right whales feed upon, that can be found in broad swaths across the sea.
Chapter 59 - Squid
In this chapter Daggoo thinks he sees a white whale but it is actually just a giant squid. As squid is considered to be a staple food for the sperm whale, the crew remains on high alert.
Chapter 60 - The Line
In this chapter Ishmael describes the line that is tied to the end of a harpoon, the length of which can be up to a thousand feet. The line is dangerous, as a man caught up in it could be sliced or thrown overboard when a whale is being pursued. Ishmael compares these lines to others that men have in their lives but may be unaware of, lines have the ability to kill us in a moment.
Chapters 61-65Chapter 61 - Stubb Kills a Whale
The crew does in fact find a sperm whale shortly after spotting the giant squid, and after Tashtego initially wounds it, Stubb goes berserk and stabs it dozens of times until it is dead. Do Stubb's actions show passion towards his work, or the kind of avid derangement his captain exhibits?
Chapter 62 - The Dart
In this chapter Ishmael tells us in detail how the whale is actually killed; a long dart initially wounds it, and then it is stabbed with a small dagger so that it will bleed to death. Sounds rather horrific, to be honest.
Chapter 63 - The Crotch
In this short chapter Ishmael notes that each boat has two harpoons connected to it by a line, and that they rest in a wooden 'crotch' until they are used to hunt the whale. While the second harpoon is used in case the first fails, the fact that one is generally dangling means that it presents a severe hazard.
Chapter 64 - Stubb's Supper
Poor cook Fleece is forced to wake up and cook Stubb a whale steak supper, which Stubb then complains is overdone. Stubb asks Fleece to tell the sharks that are devouring the whale carcass to pipe down, which he obliging does, albeit unsuccessfully. The 'Fleece' character seems a caricature - why does Melville portray him this way?
Chapter 65 - The Whale as a Dish
Stubb's whale meat obsession aside, Ishmael seems to think that eating whale is disgusting, and that most men are put off by the idea. But Ishmael also notes that man's customs are constantly changing, and that people of a given time always act like their habits are rational and not contrary.
Chapters 66 - 70Chapter 66 - The Shark Massacre
The crew has to start butchering the whale before the swarm of sharks near it consume it entirely. The sharks are in a maddened frenzy, and the jaws of a dead one almost take Queequeg's hand off.
Chapter 67 - Cutting In
The crew works together to peel off the whale's blubber, causing the ship to tip to one side with most of the crew on it. He describes the 'cutting in' of the blubber as akin to the corkscrewing of a lemon, in which the peel is removed but stays intact.
Chapter 68 - The Blanket
In this chapter Ishmael waxes on about blubber, and whether it is in fact the whale's skin or not (he thinks it is). He notes the strange markings that can be seen beneath the surface, and seem similar to hieroglyphics.
Whale blubber, yum:
Chapter 69 - The Funeral
The Pequod takes the whale's head on board, because it contains most of the whale's oil, and the rest of the body is cut away from the ship. Apparently the dead whale carcass continues to float along and decomposes rather slowly, leaving a rather ghastly sight for those that come across it.
Chapter 70 - The Sphinx
Ishmael discusses the technicalities of whale beheading, but Ahab has more deep and philosophical musings about the whale head, referring to it directly to "Speak, thou vast and venerable head." And how can you not love this book, as he continues:
"Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed— while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”
Chapter 71 - The Jeroboam's StoryI suppose all gams between whaling ships must be rather odd, but this one was particularly so. The Pequod encounters the Jeroboam of Nantucket, and discovers that it has come across Moby Dick. Among the crew of the Jeroboam is the crazy religious fanatic Gabriel, who declares himself the archangel of the same name, believed Moby Dick was a god and ordered the captain to jump overboard. He is preserved on his ship despite his craziness because he has somehow convinced most of the crew to believe in his prophecies. Captain Mayhew of the Jeroboam then relayed the details of the Moby Dick encounter. Gabriel had warned them against pursuit, but as Macey and crew prepared to hunt him anyways, Moby Dick knock Macey from the ship and he then drowned. The crew thus believes Gabriel even more even though the Captain thought it was mere coincidence. Starbuck hands a letter for Macey to the Jeroboam crew but they toss it back to the Pequod and dart away, convinced that the letter is some sort of bad omen.
Chapter 72 - The Monkey-RopeIn this chapter Ishmael and Queequeg are tied together with a monkey rope as Queequeg cuts the blubber off of the whale. While tying them together helps them, it also increases the vulnerability of each. Ishmael notes that "this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes..." and "nor could I possibly forget that, do what I could, I only had the management of one end of it."
Chapter 73 - Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and then have a Talk over HimAhab orders Stubb and Flask to kill a right whale even though the Pequod has not been commissioned to kill them and in fact has already passed several on its voyage. They speculate that Fedallah, a 'devil in disguise' has noted that it is auspicious to have a sperm whale head on one side of a ship and a right whale head on the other. Interestingly, Ahab listens to him. Stubb and Flask think that Fedallah is immortal and they could not drown him if they tried. After they hoist the right whale's head on the other side of the ship, it does regain its even keel, "so, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way, but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight." Ishmael then notes.. "Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then will you float light and right."
Chapters 74-77Chapter 74 - The Sperm Whale's Head - Contrasted View
In this chapter Ishmael discusses how a sperm whale head is more noble than that of a right whale and relates how whale teeth are removed from the jaw.
Chapter 75 - The Right Whale's Head - Contrasted View
In this chapter Ishmael goes into detail about each whale's head, drawing analogies between them and Platonian and Stoic philosophy, in that a sperm whale has a "speculative indifference" to death but a right whale exhibits an "enormous practical resolution" towards it.
Chapter 76 - The Battering-Ram
In this chapter Ishmael notes that the forehead of a sperm whale is so thick it could be used as a battering ram.
Chapter 77 - The Great Heidelburgh Tun
In this chapter Ishmael describes the 'tun' in which the whale oil is stored. Ishmael compares the whale’s case to the Heidelburgh Tun, a famous, enormous wine cask. The case contains around 500 gallons of spermaceti, making it more valuable by far than any barrel of wine.
Heidelburg Tun:
Chapter 78 - Cistern and BucketsIn this chapter, Tashtego lowers buckets into the sperm whale's head to collect the oil, but at one point he falls into the whale head and the whole head falls into the water. Queequeg ends up saving him by cutting a hole in the whales' head and pulling Tashtego out of it. Ishmael comments that it is as if Tashtego was delivered like a baby by Queequeg, the midwife.
Chapters 79-80Chapter 79 - The Prairie
In this chapter Ishmael wonders if people can read the wrinkles in the forehead of a whale the same way that people 'read' the bumps in a person's head in phrenology. I think he may have been at sea too long at this point.
Chapter 80 - The Nut
In this chapter Ishmael notes that a whale brain is tiny and describes the anatomy of the whale in detail.
Chapter 81 - The Pequod meets the VirginIn this chapter the Pequod encounters the Virgin, which has not captured a whale yet. They give this boat some oil but then the Pequod crew becomes angry when they realize the Virgin is pursuing the same whale that the Pequod is. The Pequod prevails in the hunt but unfortunately the whale they killed seems to be sinking rather than floating as they would expect. Queequeg eventually cuts the whale free and it sinks. Why do you think this ship was named the Virgin?
Mark wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65Chapter 61 - Stubb Kills a Whale
The crew does in fact find a sperm whale shortly after spotting the giant squid, and after Tashtego initially wounds it, Stubb goes ..."
thanks! I couldn't understand all of the parts they were discussing, so I had to do some research!
Dianne wrote: "Why do you think Ishmael has these long digressions? Is it to educate the reader about whales and whaling, or to build suspense?"I am re-reading, and far behind because I'm also reading Washington Square and a book about George Washington. But my answer is yes to both.
It does build suspense, because even though Melville is ludicrously wordy, he makes the words matter. It is almost like the line in the film "Amadeus," "too many notes." It does make it a challenge to read and absorb, but the work would suffer without the long and detailed descriptions.
He also educates his readers, who would have used whale oil. He explains how sperm oil is superior to others, for one thing. But most of his contemporary audience would not have much idea of whaling. Like all commercial fishing, it was practiced only by those who lived in coastal areas. The average American would simply buy and use whale oil with no idea of how it was hunted and harvested. Sort of like groceries now.
Oh, how I love this book! But I would not want to go whaling!
Dianne wrote: "Chapters 66 - 70Chapter 66 - The Shark Massacre
The crew has to start butchering the whale before the swarm of sharks near it consume it entirely. The sharks are in a maddened frenzy, and the ja..."
Cutting in of a whale, like the peeling of an orange, to remove the blubber (ch 67):
I feel that whilst Melville is honouring the whalemen in this mighty, gory and unpleasant business of killing and butchering these great lords of the seas, he is also lamenting the need to kill these leviathans, seeing in them much to admire and respect. On the killing of an old and mighty whale who is already much maimed he says;“But pity there was none. For all his old age and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness to all.” ch 81
Dianne wrote: "Chapters 79-80Chapter 79 - The Prairie
In this chapter Ishmael wonders if people can read the wrinkles in the forehead of a whale the same way that people 'read' the bumps in a person's head in ..."
Whales have the largest brains in the world and are five times heavier than man's.
Dianne wrote: "Chapters 66 - 70Chapter 70 - The Sphinx."
I, too, was struck by Ahab's intense mutterings before the silent, great head. So like the great head of the Sphinx, which keeps its secrets, has no reply to anyone who questions or wishes to envision what it has witnessed.
Ahab's words...so beautiful, such eloquence; the Shakespearean speech rhythms, a passage that recalls Hamlet's words as he muses while gazing at the skull of Yorick.
Of course, we know what is in Ahab's mind. He wishes he could see with the eyes of that great head so that he could penetrate the impenetrable depths of the sea. So that he could seek out his obsession - Moby Dick.
I found this map showing the voyage of the Pequod. I love the way the voyage is colour 'coded.'https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
The risks run to the whaling men were enormous when battling a sperm whale, which is a huge creature. They are discussed throughout the book and again in chapter 60, the risks of roping a whale to those in the small craft used to do so. So why take these risks? Why not battle easier prey?A sperm whale's blunt head makes up at least a third of its body mass. Early whalers discovered the sperm whale’s head to contain the finest quality oil, called spermaceti (literally whale seed). Some 2,000 litres of it lay in a huge sac called the spermaceti organ. Unlike the oil the whalers got from rendering the blubber, spermaceti oil would not go rancid on storage and remained sweetly scented. It was used for cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and as a lubricant for clocks and watches. Spermaceti was a godsend for all these human needs, but what function did it serve for the whale?
It was believed that the sac of oil helped the whale adjust its buoyancy when it dived into the depths after its favourite prey – the giant deep-sea squid. But now it is hypothesised that is the focusing lens for the whale’s enormously powerful echolocation equipment. It is hard to study this in a dead whale but we know that dolphins, like all toothed whales, have a domed forehead that contains an oil-filled sac, which is used as part of their echolocation equipment.
The sperm whale’s sac of oil takes up almost a quarter of its entire body, whereas in a dolphin it takes up just 5% of its body volume. The most likely reason it has evolved to such an extreme size is to help the sperm whale chase down giant squid.
Dianne, I love all the pictures you are posting.I'm finding that my reading pace is much slower with this book. Not because it's hard to read - it's beautifully written, and ebbs and flows like the sea - but because I am constantly stopping to look things up. I feel as if I'm surrounded by encyclopedias, referencing words, places, creatures, myths, history, everything. I feel as if my world expands when I'm reading this book.
I got sidetracked for an hour looking up colossal squids and watching a video of one. Then I visited the Sphinx, and then pulled out my copy of Hamlet.
I'm having such a grand time!
Is anyone else doing this? It's really fun. 😄
Tracey wrote: "The risks run to the whaling men were enormous when battling a sperm whale, which is a huge creature. They are discussed throughout the book and again in chapter 60, the risks of roping a whale to ..."This is very interesting information, thanks for posting it!
I find myself thinking about Ahab talking to the head. It was very much like a prayer, and so powerful. What a pity he was interrupted; I would have loved for it to continue.
I was amused at the way in which Ishmael backward engineers whales into myth and culture: e.g. making Perseus' sea-monster into a whale (ch.55).The killing of the whale in ch.61 is horrific! 'Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lance into the fish and kept it there, carefully churning and churning' until, at last, 'his heart had burst!'
I'm also enjoying the meetings with other ships - the encounters and stories they tell seem to be getting darker... an intimation that we're getting closer to the ultimate conflict?
Paula wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 66 - 70Chapter 70 - The Sphinx."
I, too, was struck by Ahab's intense mutterings before the silent, great head. So like the great head of the Sphinx, which keeps its secr..."
Yes, the Shakespearian speech rhythms - but Ahab is a King Lear, or maybe a Macbeth.
Roman Clodia wrote: "I'm also enjoying the meetings with other ships.."Me too, the encounters are darker and more portentous each time, and the other ships have progressively closer scrapes with the whale. It seemed to me that this was mirroring how the Pequod is getting closer to MD and Ahab's monomania is getting more intense.
The letter incident on the Jeroboam was really eerie too, I can imagine it would shake the (already superstitious) sailors.
Paula wrote: "Tracey wrote: "The risks run to the whaling men were enormous when battling a sperm whale, which is a huge creature. They are discussed throughout the book and again in chapter 60, the risks of rop..."Yes Paula, I am doing the same. I keep going to the Internet to look up things :)
Maybe Virgin because untouched by MD who is in Ahab's mind, the lord of the seas and therefore all who sail on them are Moby's damsels, to woo or wound as he chooses.
Dan wrote: "Paula wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 66 - 70Chapter 70 - The Sphinx."
I, too, was struck by Ahab's intense mutterings before the silent, great head. So like the great head of the Sphinx, which ..."
Very true, but just to clarify my comment, It was the actual act of talking to the head, and the similarity of the thought and intent, that reminded me of Hamlet, not a comparison to the character Hamlet himself.
Personality wise, I would lean more toward Macbeth than Lear.
Didn't make or think of that connection whale head= human skull.I don't think Melville owned too many books beside his Old Testament, Shakespeare's plays, and a few Hawthorne novels.
Lear is The crazed old Man
But Macbeth is the obsessed man.
A little bit of both. I'd say, with the accent on Macbeth.
I have to admit, the picture in my book with the Sperm Whale's head skeleton and the comparison to being Stoic and the reference to Spinoza had me mesmerized after reading the chapter.I'd love to stop and look up all the references, but I'm reading it far too quickly :(
Page 399, the last 2 paragraphs of chapter 58 just screams of Ulysses with the way water is described.
I 2nd how awesome Dianne's pics are for this book ^.^ And her summaries too!
Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65Chapter 61 - Stubb Kills a Whale
The crew does in fact find a sperm whale shortly after spotting the giant squid, and after Tashtego initially wounds it, Stubb goes berserk and sta..."
I'm inclined to think that Stubb takes a fairly businesslike approach to the killing of the whale. Whales are huge, whale boats are small comparatively, and men are smaller still. It's probably more a matter of getting the job done anyway you can as quickly as you can because size, strength and odds are against you.
Also, as we learn in Chapter 81 with regard to a whale's blood vessels:
"Not so with the whale; one of whose peculiarities it is, to have an entire non-vascular structure of the blood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial system..."
So I'm thinking every dart makes a difference in the hunt.
The paragraph describing Stubb drilling into the whale with his lance is really gruesome, but it's a methodical process for Stubb; he is searching for the heart.
So where Stubb is concerned, it all seems very dispassionate to me. Whaling is a business, a dangerous business to the whalers, and Stubb seems to be all about getting the job done. Not trying to hurt it for the fun of it, like Flask did in Chapter 81 (who ended up capsizing his boat).
Of course, that doesn't stop Stubb from celebrating his victory - but that is after the business has been taken care of. He's all about the profit.
Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65Chapter 64 Stubb's Supper"
With regard to Fleece seeming like a caricature, I think he is meant to be. The whole chapter is like something out of a Dickens' sketch. Shakespeare used the same device to great effect. And Melville enjoyed the writings of both. I think I read somewhere that while Melville was writing MD, he was reading Dickens aloud to his wife. I think it was David Copperfield, but I'd have to check.
I enjoy how Melville seems to carefully position his chapters; it creates a nice variety, and he can get all of his whaling info dumps in there without bringing the pace to a complete halt; although he comes close sometimes 🙄. He has the amazing story of the Pequod and the dark obsession of Ahab, he includes a vast amount of sailing, and whaling information, creatures of the sea, he includes some really entertaining comic relief chapters to make us laugh (e.g. Stubb's Supper, Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale - and Then Have a Talk over Him) and has those embedded stories of other ships and their happenings, which are really absorbing (e.g. Town Ho, The Virgin, Jeroboam). There are philosophical and cultural musings and reflections, poetically beautiful language, tales of far off lands and people.
For me, it really keeps me interested in the book and makes it hard to put down.
Tracey wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 66 - 70Chapter 66 - The Shark Massacre
The crew has to start butchering the whale before the swarm of sharks near it consume it entirely. The sharks are in a maddened fre..."
excellent picture Tracey thanks!
Tracey wrote: "I feel that whilst Melville is honouring the whalemen in this mighty, gory and unpleasant business of killing and butchering these great lords of the seas, he is also lamenting the need to kill the..."this is a good point. I wonder if many others shared sympathy with the whales during Melville's time.
Tracey wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 79-80Chapter 79 - The Prairie
In this chapter Ishmael wonders if people can read the wrinkles in the forehead of a whale the same way that people 'read' the bumps in a pe..."
are they intelligent? Here's an excerpt from an article in Scientific American, which I found fascinating!
The largest brain on earth belongs to the sperm whale, the same species as the main character in Melville's yarn. The adult sperm whale brain is 8,000 cubic centimeters. Our brain is about 1300 cubic centimeters. This is equivalent to the difference in engine displacement (the space in the cylinders) of a 1960s VW beetle compared with two and a half Formula One race cars. Porpoises and elephants, fellow mammals known for their extraordinary mental abilities, also have bigger brains than we humans. But that's not fair. Those animals are humongous. You need to take into account brain-to-body size. When this is done, the winner is .. well, the tree shrew, followed by humans and then porpoises. Okay, tree shrews have the biggest brain-to-body ratio because they have such tiny bodies. No one thinks tree shrews are intellectual giants. All this calculation does is bring us back to where we started -- humans and whales have very big brains. It is going to take more than a meat scale to distinguish any difference in the intellectual power between these brains. A look backwards In her new paper in PLOS Biology, Dr. Lori Marino of Emory University takes a look at the paleontological evidence. Humans are widely considered the most highly evolved species. Never mind that our DNA differs from the chimp's by only 2 percent; just look at how our head swelled, in only 3 million years, from the puny 380-cubic-centimeter brain of "Lucy", Australopithecus afarensis, to the modern 1300-cubic-centimeter cranial capacity of Homo sapiens. But consider the whale, whose closest living ancestor is the hippopotamus. The hippo's brain-to-body ratio is unimpressive for a mammal, 1.27, (similar to that of many sharks); nevertheless this modest brain is adequate for the cerebral challenges of a mud-wallowing life-style. Enormous evolutionary changes were required to transform a bog-dwelling tetrapod into a streamlined ocean-going Leviathan. "Adaptation of cetaceans to a fully aquatic lifestyle represents one of the most dramatic transformations in mammalian evolutionary history," Dr. Marino concludes. Dramatic transformations in physiology and body structure were required to realize the hippo's dream of roaming supreme in the ocean. Jettisoning legs, transforming forelimbs into flippers, moving the nostril to the top of the head, developing sonar, underwater vision and hearing -- these evolutionary advances raise the question of whether the process of becoming fully aquatic might have been related to the very large brain of whales. By carefully examining the fossil record she found that the sudden boost in brain size in ancestors to modern whales came 10 million years after their ancient ancestors became fully aquatic. This sinks the idea that transformation to an aquatic lifestyle inflated the whale brain. It wasn't the new environment alone that spurred the big brain. A closer look at the neuroanatomy of the human and whale brain reveals that the whale cerebral cortex is much more convoluted than the human cortex. The area of the human neocortical surface is 2,275 cm2 (about the size of a dinner napkin), but the common dolphin neocortical area is 3,745 cm2 (bigger than an unfolded news paper). The sperm whale? No one has measured it, but it's vastly larger than a newspaper. Applying the fudge factor of dividing cortical surface area by brain weight does not help: humans have a "gyrification index" of 1.75, but dolphins top out at 2.7, and the killer whale, a brilliant predator that hunts in packs, exceeds this. Marino concludes that evolution to an aquatic lifestyle cannot account for the large size of the whale brain. From the neuroanatomical evidence she concludes that the large whale brain supports a complex intelligence that is driven by the socially complex and highly communicative lifestyle of these predators. In support of this conclusion, baleen whales, which filter plankton and krill for food, do not have brains nearly as large, compared to body size, as toothed whales that hunt their food. From macro to micro Meanwhile, in another paper, "Total Neocortical Cell Number in the Mysticete Brain," Nina Eriksen and Bente Pakkenberg of the University of Copenhagen take the investigation of whale intelligence to a microscopic level and ask a simple question: If the whale brain is so much bigger than the human brain, does this mean it has more neurons? Logically, brain function and intelligence must relate to the number of neurons. Intelligence resides in the neocortex (the thin, convuluted "rind" of the brain) rather than in other, underlying areas devoted to controlling vital housekeeping functions for the body, so Eriksen and Pakkenberg focused their investigation there. The frontal lobes of the dolphin brain are comparatively smaller than in other mammals, but the researchers found that the neocortex of the Minke whale was surprisingly thick. The whale neocortex is thicker than that of other mammals and roughly equal to that of humans (2.63 mm). However, the layered structure of the whale neocortex is known to be simpler than that of humans and most other mammals. In particular, whales lack cortical layer IV, and thus have five neocortical layers to humankind's six. This means that the wiring of connections into and out of the neocortex is much different in whales than in other mammals. The researchers' cellular census revealed that the total number of neocortical neurons in the Minke whale was 12.8 billion. This is 13 times that of the rhesus monkey and 500 times more than rats, but only 2/3 that of the human neocortex. What can account for the fact that whales have bigger brains -- and similarly thick neocortexes -- but fewer neurons? Eriksen and Pakkenberg found that there were 98.2 billion non-neuronal cells, called glia, in the Minke whale neocortex. This is the highest number of glial cells in neocortex seen in any mammal studied to date. The ratio of neocortical glial cells to neocortical neurons is 7.7 to 1 in Minke whales and only 1.4 to 1 in humans. This finding may indicate a tendency for larger glia/neuron ratios as brain mass increases to support the growing neurons. But when one considers other recent research revealing that glia play an important role in information processing (see "The Other Half of the Brain," fromn Sci. Am. April 2004), one is left to wonder. Is the whale brain intellectually weaker than the human brain, or just different? They have fewer neurons but more glia, and in traditional views of the glia, the neurons count for much more. But if glia process information too, does the different ratio in Minke whales mean they think not more weakly but just much differently? We're now wondering, essentially, what goes on in a whale's head -- and why, if it's supposedly so smart, it doesn't have great works to show for it. Many have argued that humans dominate the planet because we have manipulative hands that enable us to make tools, be they harpoons or missiles. What would be the cetacean equivalent? One wonders how different life on earth might have been if humans, big brains and all, had flippers instead of hands -- and, perhaps, a lot more glia.
R. Douglas Fields, who researches glia in his day job, frequently writes on neuroscience for Scientific American and Scientific American Mind.
Dianne wrote: "Tracey wrote: "I feel that whilst Melville is honouring the whalemen in this mighty, gory and unpleasant business of killing and butchering these great lords of the seas, he is also lamenting the n..."I imagine folks in the days of Moby Dick who needed the whale oil and did not see the butchery of the kill first hand were not bothered. But for me, in this age when I do not have any knowledge of needing any part of a dead whale and do know that some are approaching extinction, I AM bothered.
Paula wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65Chapter 64 Stubb's Supper"
I enjoy how Melville seems to carefully position his chapters; it creates a nice variety, and he can get all of his whaling info dumps in there without bringing the pace to a complete halt; although he comes close sometimes 🙄. He has the amazing story of the Pequod and the dark obsession of Ahab, he includes a vast amount of sailing, and whaling information, creatures of the sea, he includes some really entertaining comic relief chapters to make us laugh (e.g. Stubb's Supper, ..."
I enjoyed and found the cook's sermons to the sharks humorous but was not quite comfortable with Stubb lording over Fleece and Fleece taking it so mildly so I searched for "sermon to the sharks" and was quite surprised at all the verbiage that has been written about this chapter. See for example, https://books.google.com/books?id=Kb6... and https://books.google.com/books?id=ePg...
I certainly missed such interpretations but at least now I feel ok enjoying the humor of the scene.
Paula wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65Chapter 61 - Stubb Kills a Whale
The crew does in fact find a sperm whale shortly after spotting the giant squid, and after Tashtego initially wounds it, Stubb goes ..."
I find Stubb's enthusiasm for the job understandable. The ship has been at sea a long, long time. This IS his job, he knows what he's doing (going for the heart for the quickest kill possible), he knows whales, and he knows sharks. It brought to my mind what soldiers tell me about warfare. Going into battle is enormously frightening, but they're trained for it. The waiting game can prey on their minds more than the danger and violence. And they also celebrate mission accomplished.
As opposed to us desk jockeys, who celebrate with potlucks.
Peg wrote: "Paula wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65Chapter 64 Stubb's Supper"
I enjoy how Melville seems to carefully position his chapters; it creates a nice variety, and he can get all of his whaling ..."
I couldn't get the link to work for me (?).
But another thing about Fleece - Dickens used his "caricature" characters to yes, provide humor; but they also served to make important points, delivered in lighter, less heavy-handed, more humorous ways, if that makes sense.
It seems like what Fleece is trying to say is that all of us have our essential, flawed natures, and we need to try to rise above them.
I thought it was interesting that Fleece called the sharks "fellow-critters".
I think Melville is emphasizing this comparison between man and other meat-eating creatures by spending a good bit of the chapter basically showing how bloodthirsty Stubb is. That he wanted his steak almost raw. It seems very savage. Here is Stubb, eating almost raw steak, alongside sharks that are eating raw "steak". Even Stubb compares himself to the sharks when he tells Fleece he likes his steak in almost the same condition as the sharks do.
So may Melville is saying we are no better than sharks - we just think we are. And that we have to appeal to the heavens and our better natures to rise above that more savage part of ourselves.
Ok, maybe I'm reading way too much into this :).
I, too, felt uncomfortable and almost angry with how Stubb was treating Fleece, and then I realized it was because I didn't like how Stubb, a white man, was treating Fleece, a black man.
I had to ask myself if I would have felt this level of discomfort had Fleece been a white man. And to be honest, I wouldn't have felt uncomfortable. I would have laughed more and thought less.
But then, when it comes to treating our fellow man like, well, our fellow man, I should feel uncomfortable that Stubb is treating anyone that way - rousting him out of bed in the middle of the night and making him the source of a joke.
But I think Fleece rather turned the tables on Stubb in his quiet way.
Treating fellow human beings with respect and understanding - this is another point Melville has been making throughout the book, especially using the close bond between Ishmael and Queequeg. It has provided some thoughtful passages in the book.
Daggoo, Tashtego, Queequeg, Fleece...Melville has peopled his book with kind of a microcosm of the world.
It's always interesting to read a 19th Century book with 21st Century eyes. In some ways, it shows us that we've come a long way - but in pondering this progression, we understand that we still have a very long way to go.
Hummingbirder wrote: "Paula wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65Chapter 61 - Stubb Kills a Whale
The crew does in fact find a sperm whale shortly after spotting the giant squid, and after Tashtego initially wounds i..."
Desk jockeys and potlucks, yeah, you nailed it 😀👍🏻.
Dianne wrote: "Tracey wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 79-80Chapter 79 - The Prairie
In this chapter Ishmael wonders if people can read the wrinkles in the forehead of a whale the same way that people 'read' th..."
This is a very interesting article, thanks for posting it.
Great article, in summary ocean life is smarter than us or had a sudden jump ^.^ Melville hinted at something related when he mentioned the eye being so tiny compared to the whale's body and it doesn't need a bigger eye to take in more information.Current themes of various aspects of the food industry can be teased out from the yucky scenes describing the whale's killing. I don't think many folks knew where it comes from. There's the one Islamic lamp that burns without relying on Whale meat, so some folks knew about it or payed attention.
Dianne wrote: "Chapters 55-57My personal belief is that the diversions are designed to slow the story down and give the sense of the monotonous day to day voyage on the Pequod. These meanderings are no different the the daily sailings with no whale sightings find ways to fill the time.
Stephanie
Chapter 55 - Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales
Hogarth's 'monstrous' whale depiction:
This section is the beginning of a long digression in the book that more or less seems ..."
I don’t know why Melville portrayed Fleece this way but I love him. I love his conversations with the sharks even if I don’t live how Stubbs treats him. And 90 years old on s whaling ship. Wow. Just wow. Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65
Chapter 61 - Stubb Kills a Whale
The crew does in fact find a sperm whale shortly after spotting the giant squid, and after Tashtego initially wounds it, Stubb goes berserk and sta..."
Stephanie wrote: "I don’t know why Melville portrayed Fleece this way but I love him. I love his conversations with the sharks even if I don’t live how Stubbs treats him. And 90 years old on s whaling ship. Wow. Jus..."I was struck by Fleece as well. One thing that Melville does very well is to write prose in such a way as to make readers feel as if they are actually hearing the characters speak, as opposed to reading the words of what they say.
When Fleece speaks to the sharks, I hear his voice in my head...an old raspy voice delivering admonitions to the sharks below; one moment whispering, another moment taking on the cadences of an old, sermonizing preacher, his voice rising and falling.
Melville uses that same gift with all his characters; when they "speak", I hear them.
So much so that when he leaves them to take us into his more encyclopedic chapters, although most of the chapters are interesting, the mesmerizing magic of those voices is sorely missed.
Melville is using free indirect style (AKA indirect freestyle writing).Jane Austin essentially invented this in the early 19th century. Almost everyone who followed her picked it up. No novels were written like this before she used this technique which is to combine aspects of first-person in a third person narration. She made it seem like the reader was in the character's mind, or thoughts.
"Free indirect speech is a style of third-person narration which uses some of the characteristics of third-person along with the essence of first-person direct speech; it is also referred to as free indirect discourse, free indirect style, or, in French, discours indirect libre." - Wikipedia
Melville clearly used this technique very well. While it seems like Melville is putting you in different character's minds, what is really happening - I think - is that the characters are actually so deep in Melville's mind that he can describe them in a way that brings you "closer" (or directly) to what is "happening" to them.
Dan wrote: "Melville is using free indirect style (AKA indirect freestyle writing).Jane Austin essentially invented this in the early 19th century. Almost everyone who followed her picked it up." ... She made it seem like the reader was in the character's mind, or thoughts.
I feel Melville is keeping his audience in mind. Some of the lengthier passages are instructive; without them, the "third person" dialog and action passages wouldn't make sense. Not to me anyway. I know very little of whales and whaling, and he wrote so people like me can truly understand the story.
And Moby Dick is based on a true story.
Peg wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Tracey wrote: "I feel that whilst Melville is honouring the whalemen in this mighty, gory and unpleasant business of killing and butchering these great lords of the seas, he is also ..."whaling seemed incredibly brutal and inhumane. I'm not surprised that Melville was scarred by it and that is evident in the novel
Peg wrote: "Paula wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65Chapter 64 Stubb's Supper"
I enjoy how Melville seems to carefully position his chapters; it creates a nice variety, and he can get all of his whaling ..."
Thanks for the links peg! I think it is exactly this type of thing that means you could read the book ten times and not pick up everything.
Hummingbirder wrote: "Paula wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Chapters 61-65Chapter 61 - Stubb Kills a Whale
The crew does in fact find a sperm whale shortly after spotting the giant squid, and after Tashtego initially wounds i..."
it's a good point, it is like Stubb is a military man and knows his job.
but hey don't knock the potlucks. those cheesy casseroles are totally worth the carbs ;)
Reading the Chunksters
Books mentioned in this topic
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (other topics)How Fiction Works (other topics)
The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (other topics)
Chapter 55 - Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales
Hogarth's 'monstrous' whale depiction:
This section is the beginning of a long digression in the book that more or less seems to amount to: About Whales. Why do you think Ishmael has these long digressions? Is it to educate the reader about whales and whaling, or to build suspense?
And in this particular chapter Ishmael remarks on the inaccuracies in pictures and artwork of whales, perhaps because one can't be properly seen, even if you are out at sea. Further, those who have seen whales close up just see the dead decrepit ones washed ashore, which hardly resemble a thriving whale at sea. He concludes that perhaps the whale is meant to be a mystery and cannot be accurately captured, or at least not without high risk of losing life and limb.
Chapter 56 - Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes
In this chapter Ishmael remarks that whale renderings by French artist Garnery are far more accurate than most whale depictions that he has seen.
Garnery whale painting:
Chapter 57 - Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars
In this Chapter Ishmael notes that actual whalemen produce some fairly accurate portrayals of whales. He comments that those sailors who have long ago stopped whaling have various depictions of whales they create, or see them in the stars themselves.