Discussion Questions for Chapters 132-134

1.  In "The Symphony," Ahab realizes that his whaling voyages have consumed over 40 years of his life.  What is the significance of these "forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time"? (405)  In the Jewish faith, 40 is a very important number, usually used as a critical division between two particular eras or periods. Rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights before the flood.  The Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years after escaping from Egypt.  Assuming that Melville intended this Biblical reference, as can be assumed by his borrowing of Ahab's very name, how does this relationship affect our interpretation?  Could Ahab, like a Hebrew wandering in the desert, lost, have finally found his way?  What does this do to foreshadow the beginning of the chase of Moby-Dick in the following chapter?  What ironies is Melville pointing out, that Ahab's "Holy Grail," his "Promised Land," is killing a whale?

2.  In chapter 132, Ahab and Starbuck discuss Nantucket, the land base for the whaling crowd.  Nantucket is described in chapter 14 as "a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background" (64).  Its residents, Nantucketers, have a special relationship with the sea.

The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots in the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation.  There is his home; there lies his business, which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China.  He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps.  For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smalls like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman.  (65-66)

From the understanding of Nantucket we gleaned early on the book, its role is as a bridge between land and sea, and those who leave it for the ocean rarely return to stay, as it holds nothing for them.   What then, should we make of the following conversation in "The Symphony"?

Away with me!  let us fly these deadly waters!  let us home!... How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again!  I think they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket.  (406)

These two excerpts provide conflicting views of home: the sea or the land.  This confusion shows the internal conflict within the sailors, their homelessness as well as landlessness.  Why might Melville have the two primary leaders of the ship reminisce about the life they missed on land before their great and epic pursuit of the white whale?

3.  Solipsism is a major point of consideration in Moby-Dick.  Solipsism is the belief that only one's mind, or self, can be proved true.  Much of the novel supports this theory, especially Ishmael's musings about the uncertainty of the sea and the constant elimination of clear, defining boundaries and binaries.  However, in chapter 32, Ahab has an identity crisis – questioning not only the world around him, but his role in his own self.

Is Ahab, Ahab?  Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?  But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I.  By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike.  And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea!... Where do murderers go, man!  Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?  (407)

This is a classic moment of struggle between the conflicting notions of Free Will and Fate.  Does Melville's novel overall support Fate? Or could this just be another instance of conclusion-less questioning, as is most of the novel?  I am particularly struck by the final line of the above quotation because it brings up a good point of irony about "final judgment" as it is viewed in most religions.  If our fates are already planned out, and God rules the life of the individual, how can he ever condemn a sinner, when he lifted the sinner's hand?  Do we think Ahab believes in his own Free Will?  Does he see himself as a murderer?