Lucas Lorimer                     Ch. 108- Epilogue July 30(day written), 2019 Journal #5

            The end. These chapters are action packed, philosophical and, tear jerking (not that I cried). To me the most impactful part of these chapters was by far the ending. The symbolic death of the bird and the fact that Ahab would turn out to be killed in fact not by the whale he loathed or with the ship he loved but instead would die by his own hand left a lot to mull over.

            If the whole book had been like the ending I would’ve enjoyed a lot more than I did. The ending seemed to impact me most with the deaths of everyone and the entire concept of death left me thinking a lot. The death of the hawk and the metaphor described by Melville is obviously that the ship was destroyed by Satan and that Satan would only die once he had taken a part of heaven (Jesus) who is depicted as the hawk. This was interesting because I did not expect the book to end on an allusion to Jesus and Christianity even though it had been talked about a fair bit throughout the book.

            Another thing that left me thinking was the entire concept of death. What with Ahab already presuming he would meet his death on this third encounter and the fact that nearly everyone dies there is a lot of death going on. But even more importantly to me was the indifference of the world to death.

            Once before in this section Ahab talked about the calm waters and said that they seem falsely calm since they have probably witnessed some of the greatest horrors. And once again in the end of the last chapter the sea rolls on as it did five thousand years ago. This sentence hit me like a ton of bricks. This is what the end amassed to, not a single tear shed, not a singe woe uttered and the sea rolls on and on and on like it always has done and always will do. Death is normal and it really makes a reader think about his own death and how meaningless it is.

Lucas Lorimer                                  Ch. 81-107 July 30(day written), 2019 Journal #4

            Throughout these chapters there is a lot of talk on Moby Dick. In these chapters the Pequod meets many different ships and to each one Captain Ahab asks them all if they have seen the white whale. He is obsessed with his goal and he will not be swayed. Throughout these questionings of the different ships we learn more and more about the white whale. Through the stories of other sailors Moby Dick’s power grows in our imaginations.

            As these chapters go on whaling has changed in my perspective since the beginning of the book. I realize that more and more whaling is not so atrocious a thing. Maybe that is just me falling victim to the way the book is written but due to all the negative press that whaling receives nowadays I think that it has influenced the world to be really angry at whalers. Reading this book, though, had changed my mind. I feel like whaling is more noble now.

            Maybe my thoughts on this topic are situated only to that timeframe where technology was not advanced enough and killing a whale was like a war were there are o predetermined winners. A fair battle, it could be called. Nowadays what with the advances of technology killing whales has become easy and it is not something would call noble.

            Chapters that would aid me in changing my mind were chapters like “The Honour and Glory of Whaling” were the greatness of battling whales compelled me to change my way of thinking.

            Another interesting thing was the issue of Ahab’s leg which when slightly damaged is thrown away and he orders the creation of a new one. This reminded me of the ruthlessness of Ahab and how focused he is on his goal that anything that stands in his way or shows signs of weakness will be thrown out.

Lucas Lorimer                                  Ch. 52-80 July 30(day written), 2019 Journal #3

            Throughout this third section we see a lot of action. Whales are killed, and harpoons are thrown and throughout all this violence there are parts that have made me feel sick but none of them were as disgusting or as philosophically captivating as the one about sharks.

            I guess I just find sharks more attractive than whales but the chapter that discusses the violence of the sharks as they eat away at the lifeless body of the whale was one of the coolest chapters in the book. The whale has just been killed and it has been attached to the side of the boat. Stubb tells the negro cook to hack a piece of flesh off the whale and cook it for him. This in and of itself is already disgusting in my opinion.

            Then we see that there are “millions” of sharks biting human head sized chunks out of the whale. Once the meat has been cooked and prepared for stubb he tells the cook that he is not happy with his meal because it has been overdone and he prefers it tough the way the sharks eat it. And this is where things get interesting because Stubb tells the cook to tell the sharks to shut up because they are making a racket while eating the whale slapping their fins against the side of the boat in the middle of the night.

            I have never heard of people preaching to sharks and I can only assume that this a way of Stubb being derogatory to the cook since he is black. Stubb then preaches to the sharks and Melville shows us once more the racism of the time. I do not know if Melville was a racist or if he is simply making fun of the racists but when the cook starts preaching to the sharks he uses swear words. Then Stubb trying to tell him to stop swearing uses swear words at the same time.

            Even more interesting is the content of the sermon preached to the sharks by the cook. He says that he does not blame the sharks for being so violent since it is in their nature but that if they can govern the inner shark in them they can be angels for angels are nothing more than sharks well governed. This reminds me of the Christian faith and I think that this a jibe at the Christians who preach that everyone has sin in them but what we must do is govern our sinful nature.

            The sermon ends with the cook saying that its no use preaching to the sharks because they will continue being violent and eating until they are satisfied but they can never be satisfied. This again reminds me of the Christian faith where the Christians say non-christians will continue trying to satisfy the sinful desires of the flesh but that those desires can never be satisfied.

Lucas Lorimer                                  Ch. 28-51 July 30(day written), 2019 Journal #2

            These were a battle. The toughest chapters of the book by far were these meditative ones. It seems like Melville goes on so many tangents to describe useless things like the thought processes of so many characters and this is where the amazingness of the book is really shown with the description and the way Melville can use words to portray every emotion.

            These are the chapters where the mysterious Ahab is revealed. He is shown to be a crazy captain who is obsessed with the white whale, Moby Dick. There are chapters devoted entirely to Ahab’s craziness like chapter 30 where Ahab is smoking his pipe when realization dawns on him that smoking is nice, and it is for happy people. He says he cannot be happy, so he flings his pipe into the ocean and vows never to smoke again. This crazy captain is criticized by some and by others his crazy nature inspires them to push harder.

            It is in these chapters that the readers get a sense for the mightiness of the whale. It is viewed as this monster that is the king of the sea. The whales are listed, and they are described in one of the longest chapters yet. Here we get more of an understanding for the hugeness of the sperm whale and the reason why he keeps being called a leviathan.

            Another thing I noticed is the way the book seems to be written in play form what with the formatting of dialogue and stage directions. This made me feel tenser and it was as if there was an action scene that is being played out. Everything seemed more fast paced and action-like. Melville’s style of writing really amazes me, maybe because I haven’t heard half of the fancy words he uses or because of the way he can put so much detail into action scenes that unless your paying really close attention or have done whaling can make the reader bored. (don’t want to be offensive but this book is really hard to understand at times.

Lucas Lorimer                                                              Ch. 1-27 July 30, 2019 Journal #1

            A very dense and philosophical beginning. Melville talks about the innate desires of man to go to the sea. He gives us an introduction into his life as a sailor. As I go reading through this book I notice how detailed it is and how philosophical it is. Probably the most challenging piece of literature I have ever had to read. The time frame allows for a lot of racism and Ishmael seems to think his Christian faith makes him a million times better than Queequeg. It really is sickening to realize how mean humans can be. Queequeg is seen as a savage and is talked about derogatively of.

            What becomes evident the more I read of Melville’s Moby Dick is the seemingly unnecessary description which he puts into simple aspects of the book. For example, in chapter 3, Melville goes on to intensely describe some of the paintings he sees at the spouters inn.  However, I doubt that this description has no purpose. The paintings are all f whaling voyages and this description is probably a way of Melville telling readers what a whaling voyage consists of.

There is a lot of talk about religion and it is talked about in both negative and positive lights. Through these initial chapters it is possible to see the changing faith of Ishmael. From the very beginning it would be foolish to say that Ishmael showed signs of being a devout Christian, however much he says that Christianity is right and savagery is wrong. We see Ishmaels faith wane as he prays to yojo, Queequeg’s god.

What’s more, religion wise Ishmael and Queequeg go to a chapel and listen to a Christian sermon on Jonah and the whale. This is very interesting because all of the details talked about in the sermon are immensely exaggerated to be more in sync with sailors.