Journal #5

Section 5 was by far my favorite. The main reason is that there were almost no chapters dedicated to teaching the reader about certain process or objects that were common to whalers; the focus here was on the narrative. This contrast between the very detailed chapters seen on previous section and the narrative-focused chapters on section 5 is reasonable. Ishmael, through the previous sections of the book, explains in detail how the whaling business worked and why certain tools were used. On section 5, however, it is assumed that the reader already knows everything that was taught to them about the subject, so there is no need to have breaks between the narrative to explain certain terms. Therefore section 5 is filled with action, drama, suspense, and wraps up the book with an incredible ending.

            Something that I realized as I was reading through these final chapters is that the “real author” of this narrative is not Herman Melville, but Ishmael is the one who put this work together. After realizing that he was the only Pequod survivor (p. 569), he decides to write this story to keep Pequod and Ahab’s quest alive through this book. What is ironic is that although the crew physically died on the accident, they were immortalized as the story of Moby Dick lives on forever. Similarly to how Queequeq’s “hieroglyphic marks” about a “complete theory of the heavens and the earth” were engraved on the coffin life-buoy (p. 479), the story of Ahab and his crew was not lost but will be passed on.

            One of the characters that most caught my attention this section was Pip Bell-boy. I have already mentioned on my previous journals that he went from a cheerful sailor to a crazy prophet. This section, however, made me realize that he was on the path of becoming a “second Ahab”. Just like Ahab couldn’t let go of his past because of the whale that traumatized him, Pip couldn’t move on from the accident. On various occasions he reminds himself and the crew that Pip “died a coward” (p. 478) and that shame should be “upon all cowards” (p. 528). Although Bell-boy gave himself a new identity and was given a seat at the captain’s cabins (p. 527), he can’t never put Pip to rest. Both are haunted by their traumas, which ironically kills them; Ahab gets killed by the merciless Moby Dick, and Bell-boy, for the second time, gets his soul drowned for once and for all (p. 566-567).