Shannon Wheeler and Elizabeth Spangler

1.     Use of Comparison

a.     Sperm Whale vs. Right Whale

                                               i.     Differences may create balance

1.     Chapter 73: “Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale Then Have to Talk over Him”

                                              ii.     Further, compares the heads to different classical philosophers—Stotic and Platonian

b.     Breeze Riley

                                               i.     Chapter 85

1.     “Ishmael continues to build the parallel between the whale and great men by contesting that the vapor that appears from a whales spout is similar to the “vapor” appearing from the minds of great men”

c.      fast-fish and loose-fish

d.     Stubb and Starbuck

                                               i.     Stubb yells at the crew, while Starbuck prefers to whisper

2.      Foreshadowing and word choice

a.     Sarah Munday

                                               i.     “Why mention it then, if it’s not a pressing enough topic to address immediately?”

b.     Abby Winn

                                               i.     “laid out his words, even at slow points in the book; it seems to me that every word was meticulously chosen by Melville.”

c.      How carefully do you think Melville chose each of his phrases?

3.     Differences between appearance and reality      

a.     Queequeeg’s personality is not encompassed by his outward appearance.

b.     Art cannot fully express the spirit of a whale.

c.      Chapter 80 tells us that a whale head is not a good representation of the brains that lie inside.

                                               i.     “The whale, like all things mighty, wears a false brow to the common world.”

4.     Is the drizzly November in his soul gone?

a.       Nina gave a quote on p. 299…. "For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies on insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed  by all the horrors of the half known life.  God keep thee!  Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!"

                                               i.     Made her think about the first page of the book and compare to the Tahitian Island

b.     At this point in the voyage people have accepted that they might not come back, and it opens up new emotions they haven’t had before

c.      Romantic connections with the ship mates

5.     Homosexual Tendencies

a.     Chapter 94 “A Squeeze of the Hand”

b.     Chase—“ Ishmael related the experience of squeezing lumps of

                  congealed spermaceti back into their liquid state. To me, it seemed that his

                  description of this process was a metaphor for his developing homosexual

                  relations with his fellow Pequod crew.”

c.      Other tendencies?

                                               i.     Monkey rope—unites the harpooner and the paddler, increased the reliability of the paddler

                                              ii.     Pg. 351—like marriage?

6.     Symbolism

a.     Brendan pointed out in book, white represents fear and power, rather than the normal religious white meaning of purity and other cultures beauty and joy

                                               i.     p. 204

                                              ii.     “holy tool of punishment”

1.     rather than just a symbol of purity

2.     makes  sense that sailors fear Moby Dick b/c he is God’s wrath