The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever
- From The Chase-First Day
- Nov 15, 2017
- 1 min read
"Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a little distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body; so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose-some twenty or more feet out of the water-the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves, dazzlingly broke against it; vindictively tossing their shivered spray still higher into the air."
Musing: Moby-Dick has snapped Ahab's whale boat in half. There is no doubt that Ishmael, in these chapters, has taken a stance. He feels the whale is "vindictive." There is also little doubt that we now have a final show-down between beast and man. Though the whale is the one Ishmael blames, does he also blame Ahab for seeing revenge from a vindictive creature?
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