NCHS AP English Language

Patrick Collins and Kyle Smith #4

"Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requiresta little lower layer. If money’s to be the measurer, man, and the accountants have computer 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 Ahab is responding to Starbucks uncertain attitude towards going after Moby Dick and only Moby Dick. Starbuck is saying that the reason that the crew of the Pequod are even out on the voyage is to make the Nantucket market money. He is uncertain that Ahab's obsession with landing one single whale is what is best for the crew in the long run. Ahab responds by saying that if they fetch Moby Dick his vengence will produce a great premium in the Nantucket market. Starbuck is still uncertain despite everyone elses opinions.

“I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn- living, breathing picture painted by the sun. The 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 Stubs! He laughs! See yonder Chilian! He snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, the one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck!”

In this passage Ahab is voicing his displeasure that Starbuck, out of all of the people in the crew, cannot support his vengence. He notes that the Turks, s, and all of the other unruly characters among the crew can agree without opposition, whereas Starbuck, who is educated and civilized, must oppose the goal. Ahab is speaking to himself when he says this and it is just one of the first instances where we catch a glipse of his monomaniac attitude.

“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 . Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do appoint ye three cup-bearers to my three kinsmen there- yon three most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooners. Disdain the task? What, when the great Pope washes the fete of beggars, using his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! Your own condescension, that shall bend yet to it. I do not order ye; ye will it. Cut your seizings and draw your poles, ye harpooners!”

This passage illustrates the pact the Ahab is making with his harpooners. He has filled their harpoons with liqour and drops of each others as a way of his equaling himself with the and uncivilized harpooners. He explains that they must bring up Moby Dick because if they don't they fail themselves and God. This is not really true since the harpooners don't have anything against this one particular whale, but Ahab uses it as a way for him to stress the importance of Moby Dick to him.

“'Vengence on a dumb brute!', Cried Starbuck, 'That simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.'"

This passage illustrates Starbuck's disdain for Ahab's monomaniac attitude. He says that Ahab is mad and his obsession is becoming rediculous and almost iac. This foreshadows future chapters where Ahab comes to realize that Starbuck and the rest of the crew believe he is mad.

Patrick Collins and Kyle Smith

posted by NCHS AP English Language III @ 9:52 PM