Moby Dick

The disembodied and elusive spirit-spout might be seen as a metaphor for the elusive Moby Dick. It may also be viewed as the spirit of Moby Dick keeping tabs on the Pequod or trying to lead, misguide, or test the crew.

The spirit-spout may be seen as a malevolent, superstitious sign of the disappointment to come, and can be seen as especially mysterious or mystical because it is the mysterious, devilish Fedallah who first descried this jet.

As Ishmael describes the feelings and emotions with which the men behold this spirit-spout, we get an image of Ahab’s face one night, in which, “two different things were warring.” And there proceeds my favorite lines of the chapter when Ahab walks about the deck: “While his one live 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” (249). Ahab is depicted to be an already half-dead man on a half-doomed mission. Like most mysterious observations, “Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time.”

Do you know what the spirit-spout is? It is a tease. It is a false lead. It is that thing that keeps you going in your irrational direction. It is Moby Dick leading you to your doom. It is the reason you make up in your head to keep going. It keeps your mind off of the ridiculousness of what your doing, of where you’re going and what your are pursuing. It is what keeps you awake at night and makes you sick to your stomach when you look out across the sea to the horizon. It is captain Ahab’s insanity. It is Ishmael’s melancholy. It is Queequeg’s idol—his tiny black God. It is whatever drives your monomania and your manic depression. It is whatever guides your harpoon, your lance, your feet, your bow, your pen.

That is what the Spirit-Spout is, a figment of the imagination, though at relevant and real as the Pequod itself. That is why Ahab and his men follow it but will never find it. You see it once and never again. But once is enough to keep you on your compass course towards your unfortunate, untimely, death—your fate, as they so call it.

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