Chapter 107 - The Carpenter Practice Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 107 - The Carpenter
How does Melville describe mankind "in mass" at the opening of Chapter 107?
As "a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary."
What makes the Pequod's carpenter different from mankind in mass?
He is "no duplicate" — he is singular and unique despite being humble.
What trades and skills does the carpenter possess beyond woodworking?
He can file metal, build cages from whale bone, concoct medicinal lotions, paint oars, drill ears for earrings, and extract teeth.
Where is the carpenter's vice-bench located on the Pequod?
Lashed athwartships against the rear of the Try-works.
What does the carpenter build from whale bone and ivory for a stray bird?
A pagoda-looking cage made from rods of right-whale bone and cross-beams of sperm whale ivory.
What does Stubb ask the carpenter to paint on his oars?
Vermillion stars on the blade of every oar.
How does the carpenter handle a sailor's toothache?
He attempts to extract the tooth with pincers, and when the sailor flinches, he clamps the man's jaw in his wooden vice.
How does the carpenter view human body parts?
He treats them as materials: teeth are "bits of ivory," heads are "top-blocks," and men are "capstans."
What phrase does Melville use to describe the carpenter's emotional blankness?
"Impersonal stolidity" — a blankness that seems one with the general stolidity of the visible world.
What does Melville mean by calling the carpenter a "stript abstract"?
That he is stripped of all social conditioning and cultural overlay, reduced to a pure essence.
What does Melville mean by calling the carpenter an "unfractioned integral"?
That he is a complete, undivided whole — not broken into parts by self-consciousness or philosophical doubt.
According to Melville, how does the carpenter work?
Not by reason, instinct, or training, but by "a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal process."
What does Melville mean by calling the carpenter a "pure manipulater"?
That his intelligence resides entirely in his hands. His brain "must have early oozed along into the muscles of his fingers."
To what object does Melville compare the carpenter?
A Sheffield pocket knife — a "multum in parvo" tool containing blades, screwdrivers, corkscrews, tweezers, and awls in one instrument.
What does "multum in parvo" mean, as used in this chapter?
Latin for "much in little" — describing something that contains a great deal within a small space.
What "cunning life-principle" does Melville say animates the carpenter?
A mysterious something — "whether essence of quicksilver, or a few drops of hartshorn" — that has abided in him for sixty years.
What does the carpenter do constantly, according to Melville?
He soliloquizes — talks to himself like "an unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes."
What metaphor does Melville use for the carpenter's body and his soliloquizing habit?
His body is a "sentry-box" and the soliloquizer is "on guard there, and talking all the time to keep himself awake."
How does the carpenter serve as a philosophical foil to Ahab?
Where Ahab obsesses over cosmic meaning and vengeance, the carpenter lives in pure practical utility without any metaphysical anxiety.
Approximately how old is the carpenter?
About sixty years old or more, based on Melville's reference to the life-principle having "abided for now some sixty years or more."
What word does Melville use to describe the carpenter's occasional humor?
"Antediluvian, wheezing humorousness" — an ancient, creaky wit like something from Noah's ark.