Chapter 134 - The Chase - Second Day Practice Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 134 - The Chase - Second Day
Why does Ahab order all sail set at the opening of Chapter 134?
Moby Dick is not visible at daybreak, and Ahab realizes the whale "travels faster than I thought for." He orders top-gallant sails set to close the distance.
What skill does Melville attribute to experienced Nantucket whalemen?
They can predict a whale's course and speed even when it dives out of sight, comparing them to a pilot taking compass bearings on a known coastline.
What simile does Melville use to describe the Pequod's furrow through the sea?
"As when a cannon-ball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level field."
How does Melville describe the crew's fears being overcome?
They are "broken up, and on all sides routed, as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison." The hand of Fate had "snatched all their souls."
What extended metaphor does Melville use to describe the crew's unity?
He compares them to the ship itself: made of contrasting materials (oak, maple, pine, iron, pitch, hemp) yet all running together in "the one concrete hull" directed by its central keel, with Ahab as "their one lord and keel."
How does Moby Dick reveal himself on the second day?
By breaching -- launching his entire bulk from the water and tossing himself "salmon-like to Heaven," raising a mountain of foam visible for seven miles.
What does Melville compare Moby Dick's spray to when he breaches?
A glacier that "intolerably glittered and glared," then gradually faded "to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale."
Who does Ahab leave in command of the Pequod when the boats are lowered?
Mr. Starbuck, telling him: "the ship is thine -- away from the boats, but keep near them."
What tactical approach does Ahab plan for attacking the whale?
To take the whale "head-and-head" -- pulling straight up to its forehead, which excludes the whale's sidelong vision within a certain limit.
How does Moby Dick attack the three whaleboats?
He charges with open jaws and lashing tail, then tangles all three harpoon lines, smashes Stubb's and Flask's boats together, dives, and breaches beneath Ahab's boat to flip it into the air.
What does Ahab cut free from his tangled line during the battle?
An "intercepted fagot of steel" -- loose harpoons and lances with bristling barbs that had become corkscrewed in the tangled line.
What simile describes the wrecked boats' cedar chips?
They "danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly stirred bowl of punch."
What physical injury does Ahab sustain on the second day?
His ivory leg is snapped off, leaving only "one short sharp splinter."
What happens to Fedallah during the second day's battle?
He disappears, caught and tangled in Ahab's harpoon line and dragged under by the whale. His body is not recovered.
What prophecy of Fedallah's does his disappearance invoke?
Fedallah had prophesied he would go before Ahab in death but would be seen once more before Ahab could perish -- creating a riddle that "pecks" Ahab's brain.
What does Ahab mean when he says "I am the Fates' lieutenant"?
He claims he acts under cosmic orders rather than personal will -- that the entire chase was "immutably decreed" and "rehearsed a billion years before this ocean rolled."
What omen does Ahab apply to Moby Dick about drowning things?
"Ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, to sink for evermore." Moby Dick has risen two days; tomorrow he will rise once more "but only to spout his last."
What does the crew do through the night after the second day's battle?
They toil by lanterns rigging spare boats and sharpening fresh weapons, while the carpenter fashions Ahab a new leg from the broken keel of his wrecked craft.
What private doubt does Ahab express after rallying his crew?
"Oh! how valiantly I seek to drive out of others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine!" He acknowledges that his own dread about Fedallah's prophecy is exactly what he is trying to banish from his crew.
What does Ahab say about his body versus his soul?
"Ahab's soul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs." Though his body is cut down to a stump and propped on a shivered lance, his purpose remains unbroken.