Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 131

Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 131

  It’s the Pequod’s final gam, and it’s a bleak one. The “most miserably named” whaleship Delight has, like the Rachel, encountered Moby Dick, and the encounter has brought death. Ishmael gives us this striking image of the destroyed...
Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 130

Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 130

Those of you who were inclined to doubt whether Ishmael’s depiction of Ahab and Pip is meant to evoke the relationship between King Lear and his fool will be pleased to find that “The Hat” opens with an actual allusion to Shakespeare’s great...
Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 129

Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 129

“The Cabin” is another dramatic chapter, and it develops further the relationship between mad Ahab and the mad cabin-boy Pip. Ahab now spends all of his time on deck watching for Moby Dick, but tells Pip to stay in the cabin, “where they shall serve...
Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 128

Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 128

Of all the gams that Ishmael describes in the novel, this meeting with the Rachel is the most fraught — with emotion for the characters and with significance for the narrative. Here the Pequod encounters a ship that, the day before, encountered Moby Dick and...
Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 127

Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 127

“The Deck” continues the narrative train of thought established at the end of “The Log and Line,” which I suggested we read with Shakespeare’s King Lear in mind. “The Life-Buoy” ended with the carpenter front and center, given...
Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 126

Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 126

The Pequod, “steering now south-eastward by Ahab’s levelled steel, and her progress solely determined by Ahab’s level log and line” is now seemingly all alone in “unfrequented waters” as she heads toward the Equator, and the mild...