Plot Summary
Chapter 120 of Moby-Dick is one of the novel's briefest chapters, written entirely in dramatic dialogue form as a terse exchange between Ahab and Starbuck on deck during the first night watch. As the typhoon that erupted in the preceding chapter continues to batter the Pequod, Starbuck approaches Ahab at the helm with urgent practical concerns: the main-top-sail yard's band is working loose and the lee lift is half-stranded. He requests permission to strike (lower) the yard for repairs. Ahab's response is characteristically defiant—"Strike nothing; lash it."—and he adds that if he had sky-sail poles he would sway them up even now, seeking to carry more sail rather than less in the teeth of the gale.
Starbuck presses further, reporting that the anchors are working loose. Ahab again refuses to strike anything, commanding instead that all gear be lashed down. He dismisses Starbuck's caution with contempt, comparing the first mate's prudence to that of "the hunchbacked skipper of some coasting smack." Ahab declares that his "brain-truck" sails amid the cloud-scud and that only cowards send down their brain-trucks in tempest time. The chapter ends with Ahab mocking the storm's noise as nothing more than colic, telling the wind to "take medicine."
Character Development
This compact scene crystallizes the escalating tension between Ahab and Starbuck. appears as the responsible officer, focused on seamanship and crew safety, while Ahab reveals his utter indifference to the ship's physical condition. His refusal to make even basic concessions to the storm demonstrates that his obsession with Moby Dick has overridden every instinct of self-preservation and duty of command. The gap between captain and first mate has become unbridgeable.
Themes and Motifs
The chapter's central theme is defiance against nature. Ahab's repeated command to "strike nothing" functions as both a nautical order and a philosophical declaration: he will not yield to any force, natural or divine. The motif of the brain-truck—the topmost fitting on a mast—becomes a metaphor for Ahab's mind, which he insists must remain at its highest elevation regardless of danger. The storm itself continues the novel's pattern of nature warning the Pequod's crew of the doom that awaits them.
Literary Devices
employs the dramatic or theatrical form here, presenting the chapter as a stage scene with character names and minimal narration, much like a play script. This technique strips away Ishmael's meditative voice and places the reader directly in the confrontation. Ahab's language shifts from terse commands to an extended soliloquy-like outburst rich in metaphor (brain-trucks, cloud-scud, gluepots) and rhetorical questions. The closing comparison of the storm's noise to "colic" uses bathos—a deliberate deflation of the sublime—to emphasize Ahab's contemptuous fearlessness.