Chapter 55 - Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales Practice Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 55 - Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales
What is the main purpose of Chapter 55 of Moby-Dick?
To survey and critique centuries of inaccurate visual depictions of whales, arguing that the living whale can never be truly captured in art.
What is the oldest whale image Ishmael describes?
A sculpture in the cavern-pagoda of Elephanta in India, depicting the Matse Avatar—Vishnu incarnated as half man, half whale.
What does Ishmael criticize about the Hindoo whale sculpture?
Its tail looks more like the tapering tail of an anaconda than the broad palms of a true whale’s majestic flukes.
Which painting by Guido Reni does Ishmael critique?
His painting of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the sea-monster or whale.
What does Ishmael compare Hogarth’s whale’s mouth to?
The Traitors’ Gate leading from the Thames by water into the Tower of London.
What animal did the bookbinder’s decorative whale-figure imitate?
The dolphin. It was introduced by an Italian publisher around the 15th century, when dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of Leviathan.
What absurd error does Ishmael find in Captain Colnett’s whale drawing?
The eye, when applied to scale for a full-grown sperm whale, would be a bow-window some five feet long.
What does Ishmael compare Goldsmith’s whale illustration to?
An amputated sow.
How does Ishmael describe Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale illustration?
He says it is "not a Sperm Whale, but a squash."
What analogy does Ishmael use for drawing a whale from a stranded specimen?
It is as misleading as drawing a wrecked ship with a broken back to represent the noble vessel in all its pride of hull and spars.
Why can the living whale never be fully seen, according to Ishmael?
Because the vast bulk of it is submerged underwater, like a launched line-of-battle ship, and it is impossible to hoist it bodily into the air.
What comparison does Ishmael make between the whale’s skeleton and the living animal?
The skeleton bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that envelopes it.
Whose skeleton does Ishmael mention as correctly conveying its owner’s appearance?
Jeremy Bentham’s skeleton, which hangs as candelabra in the library of one of his executors.
What surprising anatomical fact about the whale’s side fin does Ishmael reveal?
Its bones almost exactly match the bones of the human hand minus the thumb, with four bone-fingers (index, middle, ring, and little).
What joke does Stubb make about the whale’s fin-hands?
"However recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us, he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens."
How does Ishmael describe sign-painters’ whales?
As "Richard III whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage; breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts."
What philosophical conclusion does Ishmael reach about depicting whales?
The great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last. No portrait can hit the mark with any considerable degree of exactness.
According to Ishmael, what is the only way to get a tolerable idea of the whale’s living contour?
By going a whaling yourself—but you run no small risk of being eternally stove and sunk by the whale.
What Dutch book of voyages does Ishmael reference?
"A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master" (1671).
What error do the Dutch whaling plates make about whale anatomy?
They show whales with perpendicular flukes, which is anatomically incorrect.
What broader theme about representation does Chapter 55 develop?
The impossibility of fully capturing reality through art or science. The whale symbolizes anything too vast and fluid to be pinned down by human representation.