Chapter 69 - The Funeral Practice Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 69 - The Funeral
What command opens Chapter 69?
"Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern!" — the order to release the whale's stripped body.
What does the peeled whale body look like as it floats away?
It "flashes like a marble sepulchre" — white, colossal, and still enormous despite having its blubber removed.
What two types of scavengers attack the whale's floating carcass?
Insatiate sharks in the water and rapacious screaming fowls in the air above.
What does Ishmael compare the sea birds' beaks to?
"So many insulting poniards in the whale" — poniards being light daggers or stabbing weapons.
What phrase does Ishmael use to describe the white headless body?
The "vast white headless phantom," emphasizing its ghostly, surreal appearance on the water.
How long does the crew watch the carcass drift away?
For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship, until it is "lost in infinite perspectives."
Why does Ishmael call it "a most doleful and most mocking funeral"?
The scavengers appear to be in mourning dress (black or speckled plumage) but are really feasting on the corpse — a grotesque parody of a funeral.
What does Ishmael mean by "horrible vulturism of earth"?
That opportunistic, predatory behavior toward the dead and fallen is universal in nature, and even the mightiest whale is not free from it.
What "vengeful ghost" survives the whale after death?
The whale's white carcass, seen from a distance by other ships, is mistaken for dangerous shoals or rocks and marked as a hazard in ship logs.
What do timid sailors write in their logs when they see the floating carcass?
"Shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabout: beware!" — a false warning based on misidentification.
What animal analogy does Ishmael use to describe ships avoiding the phantom hazard?
"Silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held" — illustrating blind following of precedent.
What three things does Ishmael say the whale's ghost illustrates?
"Your law of precedents," "your utility of traditions," and "the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth."
What single word does Ishmael exclaim to summarize blind tradition?
"There's orthodoxy!" — using the term to equate religious and institutional tradition with irrational superstition.
How does the whale's power change from life to death, according to Ishmael?
In life, "the great whale's body may have been a real terror to his foes"; in death, "his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a world."
What famous ghost does Ishmael reference at the chapter's end?
The Cock-Lane ghost — a fraudulent London haunting from 1762 that even the great Doctor Johnson investigated seriously.
Who is "Doctor Johnson" in the chapter's final line?
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the famous English writer and lexicographer who investigated the Cock-Lane ghost case.
What is a "poniard" as used in the chapter?
A light dagger or stabbing weapon. Ishmael uses it to describe the sea fowls' beaks piercing the whale's carcass.
What is a "sepulchre" in the context of this chapter?
A burial vault or tomb, usually made of stone. The whale's white peeled body is compared to a marble sepulchre.
What does "rapacious" mean as used to describe the sea fowl?
Aggressively greedy or grasping — the birds attack the carcass with voracious, predatory hunger.
What literary device dominates the second half of the chapter?
Extended metaphor — the whale's carcass as a "ghost" becomes a vehicle for critiquing tradition, superstition, and blind precedent.