Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Explanation of the rescue

The narrator explains how Queequeg accomplished this noble rescue: he dived after the slowly descending head, using his keen sword to make side lunges near its bottom, scuttling a large hole there. He then dropped his sword, thrust his long arm far inward and upward, and hauled out Tashtego by the head. Queequeg initially encountered a leg presented to him but, knowing this was not the proper position and would cause trouble, he thrust back the leg and executed a somersault on the Indian. With the next attempt, Tashtego emerged head foremost. The great head itself continued to behave as well as could be expected.

Commentary on midwifery

The narrator celebrates Queequeg’s “courage and great skill in obstetrics,” noting how the deliverance of Tashtego was accomplished in spite of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments. He draws a moral lesson: “Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing.”

The story’s incredibility addressed

The narrator acknowledges that this adventure will seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have witnessed someone falling into a cistern ashore—an accident that not seldom happens, and with less reason given the exceeding slipperiness of the Sperm Whale’s well-curb.

Explanation of the whale’s head

Addressing a potential objection about how the head could sink when it is the lightest, most corky part of the whale, the narrator explains that by the time Tashtego fell in, the case had been nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving only the dense tendinous wall of the well—a double welded, hammered substance much heavier than seawater. This heavy substance would sink in seawater like lead, though the rest of the head remaining undetached caused it to sink slowly and deliberately, giving Queequeg a fair chance for his “running delivery.”