Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Queequeg’s Decline

Stripped to his woollen drawers, Queequeg crawls about the hold’s dampness and slime like a green spotted lizard. Despite sweating from exertion, he catches a terrible chill that lapses into fever. He wastes away until little remains but his frame and tattooing, yet his eyes become strangely luminous and deep, conveying an immortal testimony that cannot die or weaken.

The Coffin Request

When all aboard give Queequeg up for dying, he reveals his final wish. Having seen Nantucket’s dark wood canoes, he desires to be laid in one similar to his native custom—where warriors are embalmed and stretched in their canoes to float away to the starry archipelagoes. He shudders at being buried in his hammock and fed to sharks.

The Carpenter’s Work

The carpenter is commanded to build the coffin from dark, coffin-colored lumber from the Lackaday islands. He takes Queequeg’s measure with great accuracy, chalk-marking the dying man’s person, then transfers the measurements to his vice-bench with notches cut at the extremities before setting to work. When finished, he shoulders the coffin forward, only to have Queequeg demand it brought to him immediately.

Pip and the Tambourine

Pip hovers nearby during these events and approaches Queequeg with soft sobbings, taking his hand while holding his tambourine. Pip delivers a strange, babbling address to the dying man, speaking of sweet Antilles and asking Queequeg to find Pip there and comfort him. Then Pip turns wildly on himself, calling himself a coward for having jumped from a whale-boat, while declaring repeatedly that “Queequeg dies game.”

Queequeg’s Recovery

After lying in his coffin and murmuring his approval (“Rarmai”), Queequeg suddenly rallies and begins to recover. He explains that he recalled a duty left undone ashore, which changed his mind about dying. He declares that if a man makes up his mind to live, mere sickness cannot kill him—only a whale, gale, or violent destroyer. Within days he regains strength and pronounces himself fit for fight.

The Carved Coffin

Queequeg repurposes his coffin as a sea-chest, storing his clothes within. He spends spare hours carving the lid with grotesque figures, apparently attempting to copy parts of his own tattooing. This tattooing was created by a departed prophet who wrote out on Queequeg’s body a complete theory of heaven and earth along with a mystical treatise on truth—making Queequeg himself a riddle to unfold.

The Tattoo Mystery

Queequeg’s body bears hieroglyphic marks created by a prophet-seer, containing cosmic and philosophical knowledge that not even Queequeg himself can fully read. These mysteries are destined to molder away with the living parchment on which they were inscribed, remaining unsolved to the last. This thought apparently inspired Ahab’s exclamation: “Oh, devilish tantalization of the gods!”

CHAPITRE 111. The Pacific.

The narrator expresses deep gratitude upon finally reaching the Pacific Ocean after years of anticipation. He describes the sea with mystical reverence, noting its gentle yet powerful presence that seems to contain the dreaming souls of countless departed souls from across the world. The chapter contrasts the narrator’s meditative appreciation of the Pacific as a divine, seductive entity with Ahab’s single-minded obsession with hunting the White Whale.

Entering the Pacific

The Pequod passes the Bashee Isles and emerges into the great South Sea. The narrator greets the Pacific with heartfelt thanks, viewing this arrival as the answer to a long-held prayer from his youth. He describes the serene ocean stretching eastward for a thousand leagues of blue, marking a pivotal moment in the whaling voyage.

The Pacific’s Sweet Mystery

The narrator reflects on the mysterious, spiritual quality of the Pacific, comparing it to the legendary disturbances over the buried grave of St. John. He poeticizes that millions of drowned dreams, reveries, and souls lie dreaming within its waters, restless and perpetually tossing like slumberers. The endless ebb and flow of waves becomes a metaphor for this vast, hidden mystery beneath the surface.

The Pacific as the World’s Central Sea

The Pacific is characterized as the world’s central sea, with the Indian and Atlantic Oceans described as merely its arms. The narrator paints it as a body of water connecting diverse lands—from newly established Californian towns to ancient Asiatic shores older than Abraham—while coral islands and unknown archipelagos float between. He envisions it as the tide-beating heart of the earth, making all coasts one unified bay.