Chapter 112 - The Blacksmith Practice Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 112 - The Blacksmith
Who is Perth?
The Pequod's elderly blacksmith who maintains and repairs the crew's whaling weapons.
Where on the ship does Perth work?
At a portable forge on deck, lashed to ringbolts by the foremast.
What tools and weapons does Perth repair for the crew?
Harpoons, lances, boat-spades, pikeheads, and other boat furniture.
How does Melville describe Perth's temperament at work?
Silent, slow, and solemn, with no murmur, impatience, or petulance. He is described as a patient hammer wielded by a patient arm.
What physical condition makes the mariners curious about Perth?
A peculiar, painful yawing in his gait (a limp).
How did Perth lose the extremities of both feet?
Frostbite. One bitter winter midnight, stumbling drunkenly between two towns, he took shelter in a dilapidated barn.
What was Perth's life like before his ruin?
He was a prosperous blacksmith of famed excellence who owned a house and garden, had a loving wife and three children, and attended church every Sunday.
What is the Bottle Conjuror?
Melville's allegorical personification of alcoholism, described as a cunning burglar who robbed Perth's family of everything.
How does Melville structure Perth's life story?
As a five-act drama: four acts of gladness and one long, uncatastrophied fifth act of grief.
What happened to Perth's wife?
She died. Melville writes that "the mother dived down into the long church-yard grass."
How many of Perth's children died?
Two of his three children followed their mother to the grave.
What poignant detail connects Perth's past and present work as a blacksmith?
In his former life, the sound of his hammer served as a lullaby that rocked his infants to sleep. Now the same hammer beats in joyless solitude.
According to Melville, what is death?
Only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored.
Why does the ocean attract broken men like Perth, according to Melville?
It offers another life without the guilt of intermediate death—a living oblivion for those who have compunctions against suicide.
What do the mermaids sing to the broken-hearted at the end of the chapter?
Come hither, broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate death. Come hither! Put up thy grave-stone and come hither, till we marry thee!
How does Perth respond to the voices calling him to sea?
His soul responded, "Aye, I come!" and so Perth went a-whaling.
What age was Perth when he encountered ruin?
Nearly sixty years old.
What apostrophe does Melville use to lament Perth's fate?
"Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely?" He argues that had Death taken Perth earlier, his family would have been left with a good legacy.
What happened to Perth's forge and house as his alcoholism worsened?
The bellows fell, the forge choked up with cinders, and the house was sold.
How does Perth's story parallel Ahab's?
Both are consumed by destructive obsessions—Perth by alcohol and Ahab by his vendetta against the White Whale.