Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Third Great Tail Motion: Surface Sweeping

Third Great Tail Motion: Surface Sweeping The third motion is sweeping. The chapter suggests that in the whale, the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail, a delicacy equalled only by the daintiness of the elephant’s trunk. When sweeping, the whale moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the sea’s surface with maidenly gentleness and soft slowness. If he feels but a sailor’s whisker, woe to that sailor. The preliminary touch holds tenderness, though the tail lacks prehensile power—a power the elephant’s trunk possesses, as demonstrated by the elephant that could present flowers to damsels or extract darts when wounded.

Fourth Great Tail Motion: Lobtailing

Fourth Great Tail Motion: Lobtailing The fourth motion is lobtailing, when the whale plays in the middle of solitary seas. Unbent from the vast corpulence of his dignity, the whale kitten-like plays on the ocean as if it were a hearth, yet power remains visible in his play. The broad palms of his tail are flirted high into the air, then smite the surface, and the thunderous concussion resounds for miles. One would almost think a great gun had been discharged, and the light wreath of vapor from the spiracle suggests smoke from a touch-hole.

Fifth Great Tail Motion: Fluke Peaking

Fifth Great Tail Motion: Fluke Peaking The fifth motion is peaking flukes, which occurs when the whale is about to plunge into the deeps. In the ordinary floating posture, the flukes lie considerably below the level of his back and are completely out of sight beneath the surface. But when preparing to dive, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his body are tossed erect in the air, vibrating a moment before shooting downwards out of view. Excepting the sublime breach, this peaking is perhaps the grandest sight in all animated nature. From the bottomless profundities, the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the highest heaven. At a sunrise when a large herd of whales headed toward the sun with peaked flukes vibrating in concert, the narrator perceived such a grand embodiment of adoration of the gods that he pronounced the whale the most devout of all beings, echoing Ptolemy Philopater’s testimony about the African elephant, and King Juba’s account of military elephants hailing the morning with uplifted trunks.

Whale Tail and Elephant Trunk Comparison

Whale Tail and Elephant Trunk Comparison The chapter addresses the comparison between the whale’s tail and the elephant’s trunk, warning against placing these organs on an equality or equating their respective creatures. As the mightiest elephant is but a terrier to Leviathan, so the elephant’s trunk is but the stalk of a lily compared to Leviathan’s tail. The most direful blow from an elephant’s trunk would be as the playful tap of a fan compared with the measureless crush and crash of the sperm whale’s ponderous flukes, which have repeatedly hurled entire boats with all their oars and crews into the air, much as an Indian juggler tosses his balls.

Whale and Elephant Spout Similarity

Whale and Elephant Spout Similarity Though comparing the whale and elephant in general bulk is preposterous—since in that particular the elephant stands to the whale much as a dog stands to the elephant—certain points of curious similitude exist. One such point is the spout. Just as the whale blows, the elephant often draws up water or dust in his trunk and then elevates and jets it forth in a stream, demonstrating an unexpected parallel between these vastly different creatures.

Inexpressibility and Mystical Qualities of the Whale’s Tail

Inexpressibility and Mystical Qualities of the Whale’s Tail The chapter concludes with the narrator’s inability to express the whale’s tail fully. At times, gestures in it would well grace a human hand yet remain wholly inexplicable. In extensive herds, these mystic gestures are so remarkable that hunters have declared them akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols, suggesting the whale intelligently converses with the world through these methods. Other motions in the whale’s general body are full of strangeness and unaccountable even to the most experienced hunters. However deeply one dissects the whale, one only goes skin deep—knowing neither the whale nor its tail, much less comprehending the face it has none of. The whale seems to say: thou shalt see my back parts, my tail, but my face shall not be seen. Yet the narrator cannot completely make out even those back parts, and despite all hints about the face, maintains the whale has no face.