NCHS AP English Language

Part 4 "Chp 36- 4 explications"- Emily Rew

#1. "Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a little lower layer. If money's to be the measurer, man, and the accountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium HERE!"

In this passage as a response to Starbuck's questioning of Ahab about the price of the white whale in the Nantucket Markets, Ahab scoffs at the market and tells him to search a little deeper inside of himself. He tells him that the accountants have alredy computed the prices of everything and that everyone is obsessed wiht he monetary worth and not the value. He tells Starbuck his vengeance will fetch a great premium in his heart.



#2. "Hark ye yet again—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me.

Ahab tells the crew that when they are performing an action such as pursuing Moby Dick, that they have to push against the visible resistance or mask that is int he way of thier hopes and desires. Just as a prisoner has a visible wall barrier he must break through for freedom, Ahab must break through the barrier of the white whale to fulfill his dreams.


#3. In vain!" cried Ahab; "but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye three but once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, THAT had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped ye dead. Perchance ye need it not.

Ahab realizes when he tries to "shock" emotion into the men and they cast thier eyes down ward that maybe his actions are in vain and he can't shock the same emotion that fills his life into thier lives. He realizes this obssesive emotion may be a curse and if they had the same emotion it might kill them. He realizes that maybe the men don't need as much emotion as Ahab has.



#4. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn—living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards—the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone? Ah!


Ahab stresses the impotance of the crew in the quest for the whale and points out that Starbuck cannot stand alone in hsi own matters and must join together wiht the crew. Ahab says that int he midst of battle Starbuck will want to do his best and get involved in the action of the crew to pursue Moby Dick.

posted by NCHS AP English Language III @ 8:17 AM