Moby Dick 108-125
There were three things that I wanted to focus on. First of all, Queequeg!! I felt/feel so bad for him, and how he basically gave up and was just lying in his coffin. But it really is amazing how no enemy, even a whale, could take down Queequeg, but something invisible could bring him so near death. But In the end, Queequeg was stronger than his sickness, after he realized he had something to live for, he was able to overcome his disease. There was one quote in the reading that really had the best explanation of this mental strength. “In a word, it was Queequeg’s conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.”(398) It takes so much to not give up and I’m very impressed with Queequeg and his strength.
Ahab is completely off the wall. Even after FEDALLAH, his own little devil man, prophecy’s his death he is still completely undeterred from his quest. True, it won’t be Moby Dick himself, but it will be the ropes, which only exist in a potentially harmful whale on the ship itself. Any sane person would get off as fast as they possibly could.
Ahab is being stubborn and dangerously so. He refuses to put up lighting poles, replaces the compass and continually refuses to listen to the shipmates. After the incident with Starbuck, everything starts to go downhill, signaling the end of the Pequod.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 am
[...] Amanda: Ahab is completely off the wall. Even after FEDALLAH, his own little devil man, prophecy’s his death he is still completely undeterred from his quest. True, it won’t be Moby Dick himself, but it will be the ropes, which only exist in a potentially harmful whale on the ship itself. Any sane person would get off as fast as they possibly could. [...]