Moby Dick

Not until yesterday’s class had I put any thought to the idea that the chapter named “The Spirit-Spout” might indeed by a premonition of the future of the Pequod.  But as I reread the chapter, I found that I had underlined the following passage in my first reading,

“And had you watched Ahab’s face that night, you would have thought that in him also two different things were warring.  While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap.  On life and death this old man walked.  But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time.” (225)

The second sentence of the passage especially struck me because of the image of Ahab as man who is at the same time alive and dead, “his one live leg…every stroke of his dead limb…”(225)  Although Ahab often times seems to hide in his cabin, the Pequod is his tool of accomplishing his goal of killing the white whale; thus the every lives of the Pequod and her crew hang on his decisions and mood.  Thus second sentence seems to suggest that the Pequod hangs on the balance of life and death and Ahab’s ivory leg is a reminder of the possible ensuing death.  Furthermore, is Ishmael suggesting that the voyage could possibly go either way; success or failure?

I believe that that question is answered with the phantom spout or “Spirit-Spout”.  It is as though nature is teasing Ahab and his crew.  The spout is a reminder that the Pequod had a choice to break from Ahab’s devious plan to kill the white whale but chose not to.  Thus every night the phantom spout reminds them of their doomed journey.  It is as though a ghost lurks in the background, haunting every member of the crew.  The warning of doom did not end with the phantom spout, Ishmael also comments on the unusual birds that also haunt the deck.  He states, “And every morning, perched on our stays, row of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation…” (226) He suggests that perhaps nature, through the actions of the birds, has deemed the boat and its crew dead.  Perhaps the ship and the crew have become ghosts at sea just like the “Spirit-Spout”?

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