Chapter 46 - Surmises Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville
Comprehension Quiz: Chapter 46 - Surmises
What does the chapter title "Surmises" refer to?
- Ahab's spoken commands to the crew
- Ishmael's guesses about Ahab's private strategic calculations
- Starbuck's suspicions about Ahab's madness
- The crew's theories about where Moby Dick might be found
Why does Ahab continue hunting ordinary sperm whales during the voyage?
- He genuinely enjoys whale hunting more than pursuing Moby Dick
- He strategically uses normal whaling to keep the crew obedient and occupied
- Starbuck forces him to follow the original voyage plan at gunpoint
- The ship's owners send instructions by mail ship demanding regular catches
What metaphor does Ahab use to describe his crew members?
- Pawns on a chessboard that he can sacrifice at will
- Tools that are most apt to get out of order among all tools used under the moon
- Hunting dogs that must be kept on a short leash and fed regularly
- Soldiers in an army marching toward an inevitable battle with evil
What is Ahab's specific concern about Starbuck?
- That Starbuck lacks the skill to hunt Moby Dick effectively in battle
- That Starbuck's soul abhors the quest and he would frustrate it if he could
- That Starbuck is secretly planning to desert the ship at the next port
- That Starbuck will reveal the quest to the ship's owners by letter
According to Ahab, what is "the permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man"?
- Courage in the face of mortal danger and the unknown depths
- Sordidness—a fundamental nature driven by material self-interest
- Noble aspiration toward spiritual ideals and higher purpose
- Fickleness—an inability to commit to any cause or purpose for long
To what historical group does Ahab compare his crew's need for material rewards?
- Roman legionnaires demanding pay before crossing the Rubicon with Caesar
- Medieval Crusaders who committed burglaries and picked pockets on the way to the Holy Land
- Greek sailors on Odysseus's ship who opened the bag of winds for treasure
- Spanish conquistadors who abandoned Cortes for gold in the New World
What wordplay does Melville employ with the word "cash" near the end of Ahab's reflections?
- Cash as both money and a type of wooden barrel used for whale oil storage
- Cash that "mutinies" in the crew and then "cashiers" (dismisses) Ahab from command
- Cash as a synonym for the crew's wages and a pun on "cache" meaning hidden treasure
- Cash as American slang for courage, punning on the crew's cowardice without payment
What legal charge has Ahab exposed himself to by revealing the voyage's true purpose?
- Piracy on the high seas, punishable by hanging under maritime law
- Usurpation—illegally diverting the ship from its contracted commercial purpose
- Fraud against the ship's insurance underwriters in Nantucket
- Desertion of duty as defined by the American whaling industry code
What could the crew legally do if they opposed Ahab's quest?
- File a formal complaint to be reviewed at the next port of call
- Refuse all further obedience and even violently wrest command from him
- Request a vote among all hands to decide the ship's course democratically
- Signal a passing ship to report the captain's behavior to authorities
Why does Melville say the hunt must be "stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness"?
- Because the crew is deeply religious and would refuse to participate in a blasphemous quest
- Because few men's courage can withstand prolonged meditation on terror without the relief of action
- Because Ahab worries the whale will sense their fear if they dwell on it too intensely
- Because Starbuck has threatened to preach sermons against the quest every Sunday
How does Chapter 46 complicate the reader's understanding of Ahab's madness?
- It shows Ahab has moments of complete lucidity where he regrets his quest entirely
- It reveals his "subtle insanity" is paradoxically manifested through "superlative sense and shrewdness"
- It demonstrates that Ahab was never truly mad but only pretending for the crew's benefit
- It shows that Starbuck is actually the source of madness spreading through the ship
What does Ahab order at the very end of Chapter 46?
- A change of course directly toward Moby Dick's known feeding grounds
- The crew to keep a bright lookout and report even a porpoise sighting
- Starbuck to be confined to quarters for insubordination against the quest
- The gold doubloon to be nailed higher on the mast as additional motivation
What narrative limitation does Melville acknowledge in this chapter?
- That he cannot describe whale hunts accurately because he was never a real whaler
- That some of Ahab's motives are "too analytic to be verbally developed here"
- That Ishmael was not present for the events described and is relying on hearsay
- That the chapter was written years later when his memory had faded significantly
How does Melville describe Ahab's relationship to his whaling profession?
- Ahab despises whaling and only became a captain to gain access to the sea for revenge
- Ahab is by nature and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's ways to abandon it
- Ahab views whaling purely as a business and feels no personal connection to the profession
- Ahab considers himself above common whaling and delegates all such work to Starbuck
Comprehension Quiz
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