Chapter 126 - The Life-Buoy Practice Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 126 - The Life-Buoy
What direction is the Pequod steering as Chapter 126 opens?
South-eastward, toward the Equator, guided entirely by Ahab's compass and dead-reckoning log and line.
Who is leading the watch when the mysterious cries are heard?
Flask, the third mate.
What do the Christian sailors believe the eerie cries are?
Mermaids. They shudder in fear at the sounds.
What does the Manxman say the cries are?
The voices of newly drowned men in the sea.
How does Ahab explain the mysterious nighttime cries?
He says they were young seals that had lost their mothers, or mother seals that had lost their cubs, near the rocky islets the ship had passed.
Why are mariners superstitious about seals?
Because of their plaintive human-like cries when in distress and their round heads with semi-intelligent faces that peer up from the water, resembling human beings.
What happens to the sailor who climbs to the foremast head at sunrise?
He falls from his perch into the sea and drowns. He may have been still half-asleep when he climbed aloft.
What is the life-buoy on the Pequod made of?
A long slender cask, hung at the stern on a cunning spring mechanism.
Why does the life-buoy fail?
The sun has dried and shrunken the wood so that when dropped into the water, it fills through every pore and sinks.
What is symbolic about the first sailor to die on the White Whale's hunting ground?
He is the first man of the Pequod to mount the mast to look out for the White Whale on its own ground, and he is "swallowed up in the deep" -- foreshadowing the crew's ultimate fate.
How does the crew interpret the sailor's death?
They see it not as a foreshadowing of future evil, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged by the eerie cries heard the night before.
Who is directed to replace the lost life-buoy?
Starbuck, the first mate.
Why can't the crew find a replacement life-buoy?
No cask of sufficient lightness can be found aboard, and the crew is too focused on the approaching climax of the whale hunt to fashion a new one.
Who suggests using the coffin as a life-buoy?
Queequeg, through "strange signs and inuendoes."
What is Starbuck's reaction to the coffin-as-life-buoy idea?
He exclaims, "A life-buoy of a coffin!" and starts in surprise, but ultimately accepts it as the only practical option.
What three steps does the carpenter confirm for sealing the coffin?
Nail down the lid, caulk the seams, and pay over the seams with pitch.
What kind of work does the carpenter prefer?
"Clean, virgin, fair-and-square mathematical jobs" that begin at the beginning, are at the middle when midway, and come to an end at the conclusion.
What does the carpenter plan to attach to the coffin-buoy?
Thirty separate Turk's-headed life-lines, each three feet long, hanging all around it.
Why is the number thirty significant for the life-lines?
It roughly matches the number in the ship's company, so that if the hull goes down, every man could grab a line from the coffin.
How does the coffin-buoy foreshadow the novel's ending?
The coffin-turned-life-buoy is the very object that saves Ishmael after the Pequod sinks, making it the instrument by which the narrator survives to tell the story.