Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

第三章 The Spouter-Inn.

CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn. The narrator enters a peculiar gable-ended inn and explores its strange interior, including a baffling oil painting, a wall of whaling weapons, a dark public room with a bar built into a whale’s jaw, and a sparse supper. The chapter introduces the mystery of an absent harpooneer whom the narrator is assigned to share a bed with, and concludes with a comic exchange about the harpooneer allegedly selling his head.

Spouter-Inn Entry Description

Spouter-Inn Entry Description The narrator enters the gable-ended Spouter-Inn and finds a wide, low, straggling entryway lined with old-fashioned wainscots reminiscent of a condemned old ship’s bulwarks.

Mysterious Entry Oil Painting

Mysterious Entry Oil Painting A large, heavily smoke-damaged oil painting hangs on one side of the entry. Its meaning is difficult to discern, though it features a dark central mass hovering over three blue perpendicular lines. After much study, the narrator and others conclude it depicts a Cape-Horner in a hurricane, with a half-foundered ship and a whale impaling itself on the three masts.

Whaling Weapons Wall Display

Whaling Weapons Wall Display The opposite wall displays a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears—some with ivory-toothed edges, others tufted with human hair or sickle-shaped—alongside rusty old whaling lances and harpoons. Among them are storied weapons, including a lance that killed fifteen whales in one day and a harpoon that traveled forty feet inside a whale before being recovered.