NCHS AP English Language

Ch. 38 and 48 Questions by Bobby Katoli

Chapter 48

A trope is a literary device used to as a metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, or irony. It is sunstantially any poetic device that uses words other than its literal sense. In chapter 48, in the paragraph beginning with "It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe," Melville uses tropes. The first one of these tropes used is a simile. "Like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-grenn." Melville uses another simile in the phrase "as it would tip for an instant on the knife-life edge on the sharper wave." Again, Melville's uses a simile in "like a wild hen after a screaming brood," to describe the Pequod as it chases after Moby Dick. In the remark "marching from the bosom of his wife into a fever heat of its first battle," Melville uses a metaphor to convey the image of the Pequod chasing the great white whale. The fifth trope Melville employs "not the dead man's host encountering the first unknown phantom in the other world," which is another metaphor. Again, He describes the Pequod in the chase after Moby Dick.

Chapter 38

Melville's central trope in the soliloquey is that Ahab is a controlling madman. As Starbuck leans by the mainmast he ponders about their journey and about Ahab. Starbuck believes Ahab is insane. He feels that he has been forced into this position. He feels that he has been ties down and he has no way of escaping. He believes Ahab will meet his inevitable end when he encounters Moby Dick. He also speculates all the men on board are all deranged. However, Starbuck feels that he should stay at the side of Ahab through everything even though he deems Ahab as a madman. In the end, Starbuck must remain loyal because Ahab is his captain.

posted by NCHS AP English Language III @ 5:48 PM