Chapter 70 - The Sphynx Practice Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 70 - The Sphynx
Why is beheading a sperm whale particularly difficult?
The whale has no proper neck; the thickest part of its body is where the head and torso join, and the surgeon must cut many feet deep from eight to ten feet above while the body rolls in a turbulent sea.
How long does Stubb boast it takes him to behead a sperm whale?
Ten minutes.
What fraction of a sperm whale's total bulk does its head comprise?
Nearly one third.
How is the severed whale head positioned on the Pequod?
It is hoisted against the ship's side, about halfway out of the sea, still partially buoyed by the water.
To what biblical scene does Melville compare the whale head hanging from the ship?
The giant Holofernes's head hanging from the girdle of Judith.
What atmospheric conditions prevail when Ahab emerges on deck?
An intense copper calm, described as a "universal yellow lotus" unfolding its leaves upon the sea.
What tool does Ahab use as a crutch while leaning over the whale head?
Stubb's long spade, left from the whale's decapitation.
What mythological figure does Ahab compare the whale's head to?
The Sphinx (Sphynx) in the desert.
What does Ahab command the whale head to do?
He commands it to "speak" and "tell us the secret thing that is in thee."
According to Ahab, where has the whale head traveled?
To the deepest parts of the ocean, among sunken navies, drowned sailors, and the world's foundations.
What image does Ahab evoke of the "locked lovers"?
Lovers who leaped from their flaming ship and sank "heart to heart" beneath the waves, true to each other when heaven seemed false.
What does Ahab say the head has "seen enough" to do?
"Split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham."
What interrupts Ahab's soliloquy?
A triumphant cry of "Sail ho!" from the main-mast-head.
How does Ahab react to the cry of "Sail ho!"?
He suddenly erects himself, thunder-clouds sweeping from his brow, and says the lively cry "might almost convert a better man."
What philosophical idea does Ahab express about Nature and the soul?
That they share "linked analogies" — every atom in matter has its "cunning duplicate in mind."
Who does Ahab wish would come along the approaching ship's way?
St. Paul, to bring his breeze to Ahab's "breezelessness."
What literary technique is Ahab's address to the whale head an example of?
Apostrophe (and soliloquy) — he addresses an inanimate object that cannot respond.
How does this chapter parallel Shakespeare's Hamlet?
Ahab addressing the silent whale head echoes Hamlet's address to Yorick's skull — both are meditations on mortality directed at a silent head.
What does the approaching ship bring to the becalmed Pequod?
A breeze — it is "bringing down her breeze" to them.
What is the "doctrine of correspondences" referenced in Ahab's final speech?
A Transcendentalist idea that every physical thing has a spiritual counterpart, which Ahab invokes when he says every atom in matter has its duplicate in mind.