Chapter 114 - The Gilder Practice Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 114 - The Gilder
Where is the Pequod hunting whales in Chapter 114?
In the Japanese cruising ground, deep in the Pacific Ocean.
How long do the crew sometimes spend in the boats chasing whales?
Twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and even twenty hours at a stretch.
What animal simile describes the waves purring against the boat?
They purr against the gunwale "like hearth-stone cats."
What does Ishmael say the ocean's tranquil beauty conceals?
A "tiger heart that pants beneath it" -- a "remorseless fang" hidden by a "velvet paw."
How does the sailor in the whale-boat come to regard the sea?
He feels a "filial, confident, land-like feeling" and regards it as "so much flowery earth."
To what does Melville compare the distant ship's masts moving through waves?
Western emigrants' horses showing only their "erected ears" while wading through tall prairie grass.
What phrase describes the merging of perception and imagination in the calm?
"Fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seamless whole."
What metaphor gives the chapter its title, "The Gilder"?
The soothing scenes act as "secret golden keys" that open Ahab's "secret golden treasuries" -- they gild (coat with gold) his inner life.
What effect does the golden calm have on Ahab?
It briefly opens his inner treasuries, but "his breath upon them prove but tarnishing" -- his obsession ruins the peace.
What image does the meditation use for fleeting joy?
Men may "roll, like young horses in new morning clover" and "feel the cool dew of the life immortal" for a few moments.
What metaphor describes life's mixture of calm and storm?
"The mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm."
Name the life stages listed in the meditation on life's cycles.
Infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt, scepticism, disbelief, and manhood's pondering repose of If.
What does the meditation say happens after we reach "manhood's pondering repose of If"?
We "trace the round again" and are "infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally" -- the cycle repeats endlessly.
What question does the meditation ask about a "final harbor"?
"Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more?" -- asking whether there is any ultimate rest or destination.
To what does the meditation compare human souls?
Orphans "whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them" -- we can never know the secret of our origins.
How does Chapter 114 structurally mirror Chapter 99 ("The Doubloon")?
Both present a series of characters responding individually to the same golden object -- a gold coin in Ch. 99, the golden sea in Ch. 114.
What does Starbuck see in the golden sea?
"Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride's eyes."
What does Starbuck declare about faith and fact?
"Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe."
How is Stubb described as he responds to the golden sea?
He leaps up "fish-like, with sparkling scales" in the golden light.
What does Stubb declare about his own nature?
"I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly!"
What three responses to the golden sea are contrasted at the chapter's end?
Existential anguish (Ahab/Ishmael's meditation), quiet faith (Starbuck), and cheerful acceptance (Stubb).