Overview
In Chapter 86 of Moby-Dick, Ishmael turns his attention from the whale's head to its tail, declaring with mock-heroic flair that while other poets celebrate the antelope's eye or the albatross's plumage, he will "celebrate a tail." uses this anatomical study to explore the relationship between physical power and aesthetic beauty, building toward the chapter's larger meditation on the limits of human understanding.
Anatomy and Structure
Ishmael describes the sperm whale's tail with scientific precision: it begins where the trunk tapers to a man's girth, expands into two broad, flat flukes exceeding twenty feet across, and comprises three distinct structural layers—upper, middle, and lower—whose interwoven fibers he compares to the alternating courses of tile and stone in ancient Roman walls. The entire muscular system of the whale converges into the tail, concentrating "the confluent measureless force of the whole whale" into a single point. Yet this enormous power never compromises the organ's grace; Ishmael insists that "real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it," invoking the carved Hercules, the chest of Goethe, and Michelangelo's depictions of God to illustrate the union of strength and sublimity.
The Five Motions
Ishmael catalogs five great motions peculiar to the tail. First, as a fin for horizontal propulsion—the whale's sole means of forward movement. Second, as a mace in battle against human whalers, delivering blows that are "simply irresistible" when struck through open air. Third, in sweeping, a delicate side-to-side motion that reveals an almost tactile sensitivity Ishmael compares to the daintiness of an elephant's trunk. Fourth, in lobtailing, a playful slapping of the water's surface whose thunderous concussion "resounds for miles." Fifth, in peaking flukes—the whale raising its tail vertically before a deep dive—which Ishmael calls "perhaps the grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature," likening it to Satan's claw reaching from Hell and, in a sunnier mood, to a herd of whales worshipping the rising sun.
Philosophical Conclusion
The chapter closes with a comparison between the whale's tail and the elephant's trunk, firmly declaring the whale superior. Ishmael then confesses that despite his exhaustive dissection, he cannot truly know the whale: "Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will." Echoing the biblical God who told Moses "Thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen," Ishmael acknowledges that the whale remains fundamentally inscrutable—an epistemological limit that mirrors the novel's broader theme that nature, like Moby Dick himself, resists final interpretation.