Long Day's Journey Into the Night

 

Act I, Part One The play begins in August, 1912, at the summer home of the Tyrone family. The setting for all four acts is the family's living room, which is adjacent to the kitchen and dining room. There is also a staircase just off stage, which leads to the upper-level bedrooms. It is 8:30 am, and the family has just finished breakfast in the dining room. While Jamie and Edmund,Tyrone enter and embrace, and Mary comments on being pleased with her recent weight gain even though she is eating less food.

Tyrone and Mary make conversation, which leads to a brief argument about Tyrone's tendency to spend money on real estate investing. They are interrupted by the sound of Edmund, who is having a coughing fit in the next room. Although Mary remarks that he merely has a bad cold, Tyrone's body language indicates that he may know more about Edmund's sickness than Mary. Nevertheless, Tyrone tells Mary that she must take care of herself and focus on getting better rather than getting upset about Edmund. Mary immediately becomes defensive, saying, "There's nothing to be upset about. What makes you think I'm upset?" Tyrone drops the subject and tells Mary that he is glad to have her "dear old self" back again.

Edmund and Jamie are heard laughing in the next room, and Tyrone immediately grows bitter, assuming they are making jokes about him. Edmund and Jamie enter, and we see that, even though he is just 23 years old, Edmund is "plainly in bad health" and nervous. Upon entering, Jamie begins to stare at his mother, thinking that she is looking much better. The conversation turns spiteful, however, when the sons begin to make fun of Tyrone's loud snoring, a subject about which he is sensitive, driving him to anger. Edmund tells him to calm down, leading to an argument between the two. Tyrone then turns on Jamie, attacking him for his lack of ambition and laziness. To calm things down, Edmund tells a funny story about a tenant named Shaughnessy on the Tyrone family land in Ireland, where the family's origins lie. Tyrone is not amused by the anecdote, however, because he could be the subject of a lawsuit related to ownership of the land. He attacks Edmund again, calling his comments socialist. Edmund gets upsets and exits in a fit of coughing. Jamie points out that Edmund is really sick, a comment which Tyrone responds to with a "shut up" look, as though trying to prevent Mary from finding out something. Mary tells them that, despite what any doctor may say, she believes that Edmund has nothing more than a bad cold. Mary has a deep distrust for doctors. Tyrone and Jamie begin to stare at her again, making her self-conscious. Mary reflects on her faded beauty, recognizing that she is in the stages of decline.

As Mary exits, Tyrone chastises Jamie for suggesting that Edmund really may be ill in front of Mary, who is not supposed to worry during her recovery from her addiction to morphine. Jamie and Tyrone both suspect that Edmund has consumption (better known today as tuberculosis), and Jamie thinks it unwise to allow Mary to keep fooling herself. Jamie and Tyrone argue over Edmund's doctor, Doc Hardy, who charges very little for his services. Jamie accuses Tyrone of getting the cheapest doctor, without regard to quality, simply because he is a penny-pincher. Tyrone retorts that Jamie always thinks the worst of everyone, and that Jamie does not understand the value of a dollar because he has always been able to take comfortable living for granted. Tyrone, by contrast, had to work his own way up from the streets. Jamie only squanders loads of money on whores and liquor in town. Jamie argues back that Tyrone squanders money on real estate speculation, although Tyrone points out that most of his holdings are mortgaged. Tyrone accuses Jamie of laziness and criticizes his failure to succeed at anything. Jamie was expelled from several colleges in his younger years, and he never shows any gratitude towards his father; Tyrone thinks that he is a bad influence on Edmund. Jamie counters that he has always tried to teach Edmund to lead a life different from that which Jamie leads.

 

Act I, Part Two Tyrone and Jamie continue their discussion about Edmund, who works for a local newspaper. Tyrone and Jamie have heard that some editors dislike Edmund, but they both acknowledge that he has a strong creative impulse that drives much of his plans. Tyrone and Jamie agree also that they are glad to have Mary back. They resolve to help her in any way possible, and they decide to keep the truth about Edmund's sickness from her, although they realize that they will not be able to do so if Edmund has to be committed to a sanatorium, a place where tuberculosis patients are treated. Tyrone and Jamie discuss Mary's health, and Tyrone seems to be fooling himself into thinking that Mary is healthier than she really is. Jamie mentions that he heard her walking around the spare bedroom the night before, which may be a sign that she is taking morphine again. Tyrone says that it was simply his snoring that induced her to leave; he accuses Jamie once again of always trying to find the worst in any given situation.

Between the lines, we begin to learn that Mary first became addicted to morphine 23 years earlier, just after giving birth to Edmund. The birth was particularly painful for her, and Tyrone hired a very cheap doctor to help ease her pain. The economical but incompetent doctor prescribed morphine to Mary, recognizing that it would solve her immediate pain but ignoring potential future side effects, such as addiction. Thus we see that Tyrone's stinginess (or prudence, as he would call it), has come up in the past, and it will be referred to many more times during the course of the play.

 Mary enters just as Tyrone and Jamie are about to begin a new argument. Not wishing to upset her, they immediately cease and decide to go outside to trim the hedges. Mary asks what they were arguing about, and Jamie tells her that they were discussing Edmund's doctor, Doc Hardy. Mary says she knows that they are lying to her. The two stare at her again briefly before exiting, with Jamie telling her not to worry. Edmund then enters in the midst of a coughing fit and tells Mary that he feels ill. Mary begins to fuss over him, although Edmund tells her to worry about herself and not him. Mary tells Edmund that she hates the house in which they live because, "I've never felt it was my home." She puts up with it only because she usually goes along with whatever Tyrone wants. She criticizes Edmund and Jamie for "disgracing" themselves with loose women, so that at present no respectable girls will be seen with them. Mary announces her belief that Jamie and Edmund are always cruelly suspicious, and she thinks that they spy on her. She asks Edmund to "stop suspecting me," although she acknowledges that Edmund cannot trust her because she has broken many promises in the past. She thinks that the past is hard to forget because it is full of broken promises. The act ends with Edmund's exit. Mary sits alone, twitching nervously.

 

Act II, Scene i  The curtain rises again on the living room, where Edmund sits reading. It is 12:45 pm on the same August day. Cathleen, the maid, enters with whiskey and water for pre-lunch drinking. Edmund asks Cathleen to call Tyrone and Jamie for lunch. Cathleen is chatty and flirty, and tells Edmund that he is handsome. Jamie soon enters and pours himself a drink, adding water to the bottle afterwards so that Tyrone will not know they had a drink before he came in. Tyrone is still outside, talking to one of the neighbors and putting on "an act" with the intent of showing off. Jamie tells Edmund that Edmund may have a sickness more severe than a simple case of malaria. He then chastises Edmund for leaving Mary alone all morning. He tells him that Mary's promises mean nothing anymore. Jamie reveals that he and Tyrone knew of Mary's morphine addiction as much as ten years before they told Edmund.

 Edmund begins a coughing fit as Mary enters, and she tells him not to cough. When Jamie makes a snide comment about his father, Mary tells him to respect Tyrone more. She tells him to stop always seeking out the weaknesses in others. She expresses her fatalistic view of life, that most events are somehow predetermined, that humans have little control over their own lives. She then complains that Tyrone never hires any good servants; she is displeased with Cathleen, and she blames her unhappiness on Tyrone's refusal to hire a top-rate maid. At this point, Cathleen enters and tells them that Tyrone is still outside talking. Edmund exits to fetch him, and while he is gone, Jamie stares at Mary with a concerned look. Mary asks why he is looking at her, and he tells her that she knows why. Although he will not say it directly, Jamie knows that Mary is back on morphine; he can tell by her glazed eyes. Edmund reenters and curses Jamie when Mary, playing ignorant, tells him that Jamie has been insinuating nasty things about her. Mary prevents an argument by telling Edmund to blame no one. She again expresses her fatalist view: "[Jamie] can't help what the past has made him. Any more than your father can. Or you. Or I." Jamie shrugs off all accusations, and Edmund looks suspiciously at Mary.

 Tyrone enters, and he argues briefly with his two sons about the whiskey. They all have a large drink. Suddenly, Mary has an outburst about Tyrone's failure to understand what a home is. Mary has a distinct vision of a home, one that Tyrone has never been able to provide for her. She tells him that he should have remained a bachelor, but then she drops the subject so that they can begin lunch. However, she first criticizes Tyrone for letting Edmund drink, saying that it will kill him. Suddenly feeling guilty, she retracts her comments. Jamie and Edmund exit to the dining room. Tyrone sits staring at Mary, then says that he has "been a God-damned fool to believe in you." She becomes defensive and begins to deny Tyrone's unspoken accusations, but he now knows that she is back on morphine. She complains again of his drinking before the scene ends.

 

Act II, Scene ii  The scene begins half an hour after the previous scene. The family is returning from lunch in the dining room. Tyrone appears angry and aloof, while Edmund appears "heartsick." Mary and Tyrone argue briefly about the nature of the "home," although Mary seems somewhat aloof while she speaks because she is on morphine. The phone rings, and Tyrone answers it. He talks briefly with the caller and agrees on a meeting at four o'clock. He returns and tells the family that the caller was Doc Hardy, who wanted to see Edmund that afternoon. Edmund remarks that it doesn't sound like good tidings. Mary immediately discredits everything Doc Hardy has to say because she thinks he is a cheap quack whom Tyrone hired only because he is inexpensive. After a brief argument, she exits upstairs.

 After she is gone, Jamie remarks that she has gone to get more morphine. Edmund and Tyrone explode at him, telling him not to think such bad thoughts about people. Jamie counters that Edmund and Tyrone need to face the truth; they are kidding themselves. Edmund tells Jamie that he is too pessimistic. Tyrone argues that both boys have forgotten Catholicism, the only belief that is not fraudulent. Jamie and Edmund both grow mad and begin to argue with Tyrone. Tyrone admits that he does not practice Catholicism strictly, but he claims that he prays each morning and each evening. Edmund is a believer in Nietzsche, who wrote that "God is dead" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He ends the argument, however, by resolving to speak with Mary about the drugs, and he exits upstairs.

 After Edmund leaves, Tyrone tells Jamie that Doc Hardy say that Edmund has consumption, "no possible doubt." However, if Edmund goes to a sanatorium immediately, he will be cured in six to 12 months. Jamie demands that Tyrone send Edmund somewhere good, not somewhere cheap. Jamie says that Tyrone thinks consumption is necessarily fatal, and therefore it is not worth spending money on trying to cure Edmund since he is guaranteed to die anyway. Jamie correctly argues that consumption can be cured if treated properly. He decides to go with Tyrone and Edmund to the doctor that afternoon then exits.

 Mary reenters as Jamie leaves, and she tells Tyrone that Jamie would be a good son if he had been raised in a "real" home as Mary envisions it. She tells Tyrone not to give Jamie any money because he will use it only to but liquor. Tyrone bitterly implies that Mary and her drug use is enough to make any man want to drink. Mary dodges his accusation with denials, but she asks Tyrone not to leave her alone that afternoon because she gets lonely. Tyrone responds that Mary is the one who "leaves," referring to her mental aloofness when she takes drugs. Tyrone suggests that Mary take a ride in the new car he bought her, which to Tyrone's resentment does not often get used (he sees it as another waste of money). Mary tells him that he should not have bought her a second-hand car. In any case, Mary argues that she has no one to visit in the car, since she has not had any friends since she got married. She alludes briefly to a scandal involving Tyrone and a mistress at the beginning of their marriage, and this event caused many of her friends to abandon her. Tyrone tells Mary not to dig up the past. Mary changes the subject and tells Tyrone that she needs to go to the drugstore.

 Delving into the past, Mary tells Tyrone the story of getting addicted to morphine when Edmund was born. She implicitly blames Tyrone for her addiction because he would only pay for a cheap doctor who knew of no better way to cure her childbirth pain. Tyrone interrupts and tells her to forget the past, but Mary replies, "Why? How can I? The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future too. We all try to lie out of that but life won't let us." Mary blames herself for breaking her vow never to have another baby after Eugene, her second baby who died at two years old from measles he caught from Jamie after Jamie went into the baby's room. Tyrone tells Mary to let the dead baby rest in peace, but Mary only blames herself more for not staying with Eugene (her mother was babysitting when Jamie gave Eugene measles), and instead going on the road to keep Tyrone company as he traveled the country with his plays. Tyrone had later insisted that Mary have another baby to replace Eugene, and so Edmund was born. But Mary claimed that from the first day she could tell that Edmund was weak and fragile, as though God intended to punish her for what happened to Eugene.

 Edmund reenters after Mary's speech, and he asks Tyrone for money, which Tyrone grudgingly produces. Edmund is genuinely thankful, but then he gets the idea that Tyrone may regret giving him money because Tyrone thinks that Edmund will die and the money will be wasted. Tyrone is greatly hurt by this accusation, and Edmund suddenly feels very guilty for what he said. He and his father make amends briefly before Mary furiously tells Edmund not to be so morbid and pessimistic. She begins to cry, and Tyrone exits to get ready to go to the doctor with Edmund. Mary again criticizes Doc Hardy and tells Edmund not to see him. Edmund replies that Mary needs to quit the morphine, which puts Mary on the defensive, denying that she still uses and then making excuses for herself. She admits that she lies to herself all the time, and she says that she can "no longer call my soul my own." She hopes for redemption one day through the Virgin. Jamie and Tyrone call Edmund, and he exits. Mary is left alone, glad that they are gone but feeling "so lonely."

 

Act III

 The scene opens as usual on the living room at 6:30 pm, just before dinner time. Mary and Cathleen are alone in the room; Cathleen, at Mary's invitation, has been drinking. Although they discuss the fog, it is clear that Cathleen is there only to give Mary a chance to talk to someone. They discuss briefly Tyrone 's obsession with money, and then Mary refuses to admit to Edmund's consumption. Mary delves into her past memories of her life and family. As a pious Catholic schoolgirl, she says that she never liked the theater; she did not feel "at home" with the theater crowd. Mary then brings up the subject of morphine, which we learn Cathleen gets for her from the local drugstore. Mary is becoming obsessed with her hands, which used to be long and beautiful but have since deteriorated. She mentions that she used to have two dreams: to become a nun and to become a famous professional pianist. These dreams evaporated, however, when she met Tyrone and fell in love. She met Tyrone after seeing him in a play. He was friends with her father, who introduced the two. And she maintains that Tyrone is a good man; in 36 years of marriage, he has had not one extramarital scandal.

 Cathleen then exits to see about dinner, and Mary slowly becomes bitter as she recalls more memories. She thinks of her happiness before meeting Tyrone. She thinks that she cannot pray anymore because the Virgin will not listen to a dope fiend. She decides to go upstairs to get more drugs, but before she can do so, Edmund and Tyrone return.

 They immediately recognize upon seeing her that she has taken a large dose of morphine. Mary tells them that she is surprised they returned, since it is "more cheerful" uptown. The men are clearly drunk, and in fact Jamie is still uptown seeing whores and drinking. Mary says that Jamie is a "hopeless failure" and warns that he will drag down Edmund with him out of jealousy. Mary talks more about the bad memories from the past, and Tyrone laments that he even bothered to come home to his dope addict of a wife. Tyrone decides to pay no attention to her. Mary meanwhile waxes about Jamie, who she thinks was very smart until he started drinking. Mary blames Jamie's drinking on Tyrone, calling the Irish stupid drunks, a comment which Tyrone ignores.

 Mary's tone suddenly changes as she reminisces about meeting Tyrone. Tyrone then begins to cry as he thinks back on the memories, and he tells his wife that he loves her. Mary responds, "I love you dear, in spite of everything." But she regrets marrying him because he drinks so much. Mary says she will not forget, but she will try to forgive. She mentions that she was spoiled terribly by her father, and that spoiling made her a bad wife. Tyrone takes a drink, but seeing the bottle has been watered down by his sons trying to fool him into believing that they haven't been drinking, he goes to get a new one. Mary again calls him stingy, but she excuses him to Edmund, telling of how he was abandoned by his father and forced to work at age 10.

 Edmund then tells Mary that he has tuberculosis, and Mary immediately begins discrediting Doc Hardy. She will not believe it, and she does not want Edmund to go to a sanatorium. She thinks that Edmund is just blowing things out of the water in an effort to get more attention. Edmund reminds Mary that her own father died of tuberculosis, then comments that it is difficult having a "dope fiend for a mother." He exits, laving Mary alone. She says aloud that she needs more morphine, and she admits that she secretly hopes to overdose and die, but she cannot intentionally do so because the Virgin could never forgive suicide. Tyrone reenters with more whiskey, noting that Jamie could not pick the lock to his liquor cabinet. Mary suddenly bursts out that Edmund will die, but Tyrone assures her that he will be cured in six months. Mary thinks that Edmund hated her because she is a dope fiend. Tyrone comforts her, and Mary once again blames herself for giving birth. Cathleen announces dinner. Mary says she is not hungry and goes to bed. Tyrone knows that she is really going for more drugs.

 

Act IV, Part One

 The time is midnight, and as the act begins a foghorn is heard in the distance. Tyrone sits alone in the living room, drinking and playing solitaire. He is drunk, and soon Edmund enters, also drunk. They argue about keeping the lights on and the cost of the electricity. Tyrone acts stubborn, and Edmund accuses him of believing whatever he wants, including that Shakespeare and Wellington were Irish Catholics. Tyrone grows angry and threatens to beat Edmund, then retracts. He gives up and turns on all the lights. They note that Jamie is still out at the whorehouse. Edmund has just returned from a long walk in the cold night air even though doing so was a bad idea for his health. He states, "To hell with sense! We're all crazy." Edmund tells Tyrone that he loves being in the fog because it lets him live in another world. He pessimistically parodies Shakespeare, saying, "We are such stuff as manure is made of, so let's drink up and forget it. That's more my idea." He quotes then from the French author Baudelaire, saying "be always drunken." He then quotes from Baudelaire about the debauchery in the city in reference to Jamie. Tyrone criticizes all of Edmund's literary tastes; he thinks Edmund should leave literature for God. Tyrone thinks that only Shakespeare avoids being an evil, morbid degenerate.

 They hear Mary upstairs moving around, and they discuss her father, who died of tuberculosis. Edmund notes that they only seem to discuss unhappy topics together. They begin to play cards, and Tyrone tells Jamie that even though Mary dreamed of being a nun and a pianist, she did not have the willpower for the former or the skill for the latter; Mary deludes herself. They hear her come downstairs but pretend not to notice. Edmund then blames Tyrone for Mary's morphine addiction because Tyrone hired a cheap quack. Edmund then says he hates Tyrone and blames him for Mary's continued addiction because Tyrone never gave her a home. Tyrone defends himself, but then Edmund says that he thinks that Tyrone believes he will die from consumption. Edmund tells Tyrone that he, Tyrone, spends money only on land, not on his sons. Edmund states that he will die before he will go to a cheap sanatorium.

 Tyrone brushes off his comments, saying that Edmund is drunk. But Tyrone promises to send Edmund anywhere he wants to make him better, "within reason." Tyrone tells Edmund that he is prudent with money because he has always had to work for everything he has. Edmund and Jamie, by contrast, have been able to take everything in life for granted. Tyrone thinks that neither of his sons knows the value of money. Edmund, delving into his deeper emotions, reminds Tyrone that he, Edmund, once tried to commit suicide. Tyrone says that Edmund was merely drunk at the time, but Edmund insists he was aware of his actions. Tyrone then begins to cry lightly, telling of his destitute childhood and his terrible father. Tyrone and Edmund, making amends, agree together on a sanatorium for Edmund, a place that is more expensive but substantially better. Tyrone then tells Edmund of his great theatrical mistake that prevented him from becoming widely famous: he sold out to one particular role, and was forever more typecast, making it difficult for him to expand his horizons and find new work. Tyrone says that he only ever really wanted to be an artist, but his hopes were dashed when he sold out to brief commercial success. Edmund begins laughing "at life. It's so damned crazy," thinking of his father as an artist.

 Edmund then tells some of his memories, all of which are related to the sea. He reflects on moments when he felt dissolved into or lost in the ocean. He thinks that there is truth and meaning in being lost at sea, and he thinks he should have been born a "seagull or a fish."

 

Act IV, Part Two

 Hearing Jamie approaching the house, Tyrone steps into the next room. Jamie enters, drunk and slurring his speech. He drinks more, but he will not let Edmund drink at first, for health reasons. Jamie complains about Tyrone briefly, then learns of his agreement with Edmund. Jamie says that he spent the evening at the whorehouse, where he paid for a fat whore whom no one else was willing to take. Edmund attacks Jamie with a punch when Jamie begins praising himself and berating others. Jamie thanks him suddenly for straightening him out; he has been messed up by problems related to Mary's addiction. He and Edmund both begin to cry as they think about their mother. Jamie is also worried about Edmund, who may die from consumption. Jamie says that he loves Edmund, and that in a sense he made him what he is at present.

 But Jamie also admits that he has been a bad influence, and he says that he did it on purpose. Jamie admits that he has always been jealous of Edmund, and he wanted Edmund to also fail. He set a bad example intentionally and tried to bring Edmund down. He then warns Edmund, saying, "I'll do my damnedest to make you fail," but then he admits, "You're all I've got left." Jamie then passes out.

 Tyrone then reenters, having heard all that Jamie said. Tyrone says that he has been issuing the exact same warning to Edmund for many years. Tyrone calls Jamie a "waste." Jamie wakes up suddenly and argues with Tyrone. Jamie and Tyrone both pass out briefly until they are awoken by the sound of Mary playing the piano in the next room. The sound stops, and Mary appears. She is very pale and very clearly on a substantial dose of morphine. Jamie begins to cry, and Tyrone angrily cries that he will throw Jamie out of his house. Mary is hallucinating, thinking that she is back in her childhood. She thinks that she is in a convent. In her hands, she is holding her wedding gown, which she fished out of the attic earlier. She does not hear anyone, and she moves like a sleepwalker. Edmund suddenly tells Mary that he has consumption, but she tells him not to touch her because she wants to be a nun. The three men all pour themselves more alcohol, but before they can drink, Mary begins to speak. She tells them of her talk with Mother Elizabeth, who told her that she should experience life out of the convent before choosing to become a nun. Mary says that she followed that advice, went home to her parents, met and fell in love with James Tyrone, "and was so happy for a time." The boys sit motionless and Tyrone stirs in his chair as the play ends.

 

Moby Dick

 

Context

Herman Melville (1819-1891) was a popular writer of sea narratives before he wrote Moby-Dick (1851). What was to become his best known novel, The Whale; or Moby-Dick, received good reviews when it appeared in England, but the first American edition, coming out a month later in New York, received mixed reviews. It was not a financial success and bafied American critics until the 20th century, when it began to be considered a classic.

Melville was not recognized as a genius in his time; his most famous works today{Moby-Dick, short stories like "Benito Cereno," and Billy Budd{were not widely read or heralded in the 19th century.

Melville's America was a tumultuous place. In the North, rapid industrialization was changing social patterns and giving rise to new wealth. In the South, the cotton interest was trying to hold onto the system of black slavery.

America was stretching westward, and encountering Native American tribes, as travel by train, road, sea, and canal become easier than before. Politicians appealed to the masses as the idea of "democracy" (versus republicanism) took hold. Nationalism was high in the early nineteenth century, but as national interconnectedness became more feasible, the deep divisions in society began to grow. Soon, sectionalism, racism, economic self-interest, and bitter political struggle would culminate in the Civil War.

Against this backdrop, Melville sailed off on his first whaling voyage in 1841. This experience became the material for his first book, Typee (1846), a narrative that capitalized on exotic titillation about natives in the Marquesas Islands. Becoming well known for his earthy, rowdy stories of faraway places, he quickly followed his initial success with Omoo (1847) and Mardi (1849).

But after Mardi, Melville's writing career started to level off. Though Melville had once thought he could be a professional writer, Moby-Dicks poor reviews meant that Melville would never be able to support himself by writing alone. Melville was always firmly middle-class, though his personas in books always seemed working-class. He had a distinguished pedigree: some of his ancestors were Scottish and Dutch settlers of New York who played leading roles in the American Revolution and commercial development. But Melville often felt like the "savage" in the family, which may have explained why he was not afraid to tackle such risky topics as slave revolt (in "Benito Cereno") or the life-sucking potential of offce jobs ("Bartleby the Scrivener").

Throughout his life, Melville was an avid reader. Much of his information for Moby-Dick comes from printed sources. The number of refer

ences to difierent texts (intertextuality) in Moby-Dick testifies to the importance of books in Melville's life. In particular, he admired Nathaniel Hawthorne, whom he befriended in 1850 and to whom Melville dedicated the novel. Melville admired Hawthorne's willingness to dive to deep psychological depths and gothic grimness, traits for which he would also be praised.

The works of Shakespeare and stories in the Bible (especially the Old Testament) also in uenced Moby-Dick. Moreover, Melville's novel was certainly not the first book on whaling. Whaling narratives were extremely popular in the 19th century. In particular, Melville relied on the encyclopedic Natural History of the Sperm Whale by Thomas Beale and the narrative Etchings of a Whaling Cruise by J. Ross Browne. He also used information from a volume by William Scoresby, but mostly to ridicule Scoresby's pompous inaccuracy. One final note: many editions of Moby-Dick have been printed. Check your edition before using this guide, because "abridged" or "edited" versions may be difierent.

Characters

Ishmael { Ishmael is the narrator of the story, but not really the center of it. He has no experience with whaling when he signs on and he is often comically extravagant in his storytelling. Ishmael bears the same name as a famous castaway in the Bible.

Ahab { The egomaniacal captain of the whalingship Pequod; his leg was taken off by Moby Dick, the white whale. He searches frantically for the whale, seeking revenge, and forces his crew to join him in the pursuit.

Starbuck { This native of Nantucket is the first mate of the Pequod. Starbuck questions his commander's judgment, first in private and later in public.

Queequeg { Starbuck's stellar harpooner and Ishmael's best friend, Queequeg was once a prince from a South Sea island who wanted to have a worldly adventure. Queequeg is a composite character, with an identity that is part African, Polynesian, Islamic, Christian, and Native American.

Stubb { This native of Cape Cod is the second mate of the Pequod and always has a bit of mischievous good humor.

Moby Dick { The great white sperm whale; an infamous and dangerous threat to seamen like Ahab and his crew.

Tashtego { Stubb's harpooneer, Tashtego is a Gay Head Indian from Martha's Vineyard.

Flask { This native of Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard is the third mate of the Pequod. Short and stocky, he has a confrontational attitude and no reverence for anything.

Daggoo { Flask's harpooneer, Daggoo is a very big, dark-skinned, imperial-looking man from Africa.

Pip { Either from Connecticut or Alabama (there is a discrepancy), Pip used to play the tambourine and take care of the ship. After being left to oat on the sea alone for a short period of time, he becomes mystically wise{or possibly loses his mind.

Fedallah { Most of the crew doesn't know until the first whale chase that Ahab has brought on board this strange "oriental" old man who is a Parsee (Persian fire-worshipper). Fedallah has a very striking appearance: around his head is a turban made from his own hair, and he wears a black Chinese jacket and pants. Like Queequeg, Fedallah's character is also a composite of Middle Eastern and East Asian traits.

Peleg { This well-to-do retired whaleman of Nantucket is one of the largest owners of the Pequod who, with Captain Bildad, takes care of hiring the crew. When the two are negotiating wages for Ishmael and Queequeg, Peleg plays the generous one. He is a Quaker.

Bildad { Also a well-to-do Quaker ex-whaleman from Nantucket who owns a large share of the Pequod, Bildad is (or pretends to be) crustier than Peleg in negotiations over wages.

Father Mapple { The preacher in the New Bedford Whaleman's Chapel. He delivers a sermon on Jonah and the whale.

Captain Boomer { Boomer is the jovial captain of the English whalingship Samuel Enderby; his arm was taken off by Moby Dick

 

Introduction

Summary

These prefatory sections establish the groundwork for a new book about whaling. Melville quotes from a variety of sources, revered, famous, and obscure, that may directly address whaling or only mention a whale in passing. The quotations include short passages from the Bible, Shakespeare, John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), other well-known poems, dictionaries, whaling and travel narratives, histories, and songs. The Etymology section, looking at the derivations of "whale," is compiled by a "late consumptive usher to a grammar school," and the Extracts section, a selection of short quotations describing whales or whaling, by a "sub-sub-librarian."

Melville's humor comes through in these sections, both in the way he pokes fun at the "poor devil of a Sub-Sub" and mentions even the tiniest reference to a whale in these literary works.

 

Chapters 1-9

Summary

The story begins with one of the most famous opening lines in literary history: "Call me Ishmael." Whatever Ishmael's "real" name, his adopted name signals his identification with the Biblical outcast from the Book of Genesis.

He explains that he went to sea because he was feeling a "damp, drizzly November in [his] soul" and wanted some worldly adventure. In the mood for old-fashioned whaling, Ishmael heads to New Bedford, the current center of whaling, to catch a ferry to Nantucket, the previous center of whaling.

After wandering through the black streets of New Bedford, he finally stumbles upon The Spouter-Inn, owned by Peter Coffn. First passing by a large, somewhat inscrutable oil painting and a collection of "monstrous clubs and spears," Ishmael walks into a room filled with "a wild set of mariners." Because the inn is nearly full, Ishmael learns that he will have to share a room with "a dark complexioned" harpooner named Queequeg. At first, Ishmael decides that he would rather sleep on a bench than share a bed with some strange, possibly dangerous man. But, discovering the bench to be too uncomfortable, he decides to put up with the unknown harpooner, who, Coffn assures him, is perfectly fine because "he pays reg'lar." Still, Ishmael is worried since Coffn tells him that the harpooner has recently arrived from the South Sea and peddles shrunken heads. When the Queequeg finally returns, the frightened Ishmael watches Queequeg from the bed, noting with a little horror the harpooner's tattoos, tomahawk/pipe, and dark-colored idol.

When Queequeg finally discovers Ishmael in his bed, he ourishes the tomahawk as Ishmael shouts for the owner. After Coffn explains the situation, they settle in for the night and, when they wake up, Queequeg's arm is affectionately thrown over Ishmael. Ishmael is sorry for his prejudices against the "cannibal," finding Queequeg quite civilized, and they become fast, close friends.

The chapters called The Street, The Chapel, The Pulpit, and The Sermon establish the atmosphere in which Ishmael sets out on his whaling mission.

Because of its maritime industry, New Bedford is a cosmopolitan town, full of difierent sorts of people (Lascars, Malays, Feegeeans, Tongatabooans, Yankees, and green Vermonters). In this town is the Whaleman's Chapel, where the walls are inscribed with memorials to sailors lost at sea and the pulpit is like a ship's bow. The preacher in this chapel, Father Mapple, is a favorite among whalemen because of his sincerity and sanctity. Once a sailor and harpooner, Mapple now delivers sermons. His theme for this Sunday: Jonah, the story of the prophet swallowed by "a great fish." (Today we talk about "Jonah and the Whale.") Mapple preaches a story about man's sin, willful disobedience of the command of God, and ight from Him. But, says Mapple, the story also speaks to him personally as a command "To preach the Truth in the face of Falsehood!" with a confidence born from knowing God's will.

Chapters 10-21

Summary

In these chapters we learn more about the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg. Upon third consideration, Ishmael develops a great respect for his new friend. Although still a "savage," Queequeg becomes, in Ishmael's mind, "George Washington cannibalistically developed." Furthermore, after having intimate chats with him in bed, Ishmael admires Queequeg's sincerity and lack of Christian "hollow courtesies." Quick friends, they are "married" after a social smoke. The chapter called Biographical gives more information on Queequeg's past, detailing the harpooner's life as a son of a High Chief or King of Kokovoko. Intent on seeing the world, he paddled his way to a departing ship and persisted so stubbornly that they finally allowed him to stow away as a whaleman. Queequeg can never go back because his interaction with Christianity has made him unfit to ascend his homeland's "pure and undefiled throne" and so, says Ishmael, "that barbed iron [a harpoon] was in lieu of a sceptre now."

Together, they set off with a wheelbarrow full of their things for Nantucket. On the packet over to Nantucket, a bumpkin mimics Queequeg.Queequeg ips him around to punish him, and is subsequently scolded by the captain. But when the bumpkin is swept overboard as the ship has technical dificulties, Queequeg takes charge of the ropes to secure the boat and then dives into the water to save the man overboard. This action wins everyone's respect.

Melville then writes a bit about Nantucket's history, about the "red-men"who first settled there, its ecology, its dependence on the sea for livelihood.

When the two companions arrive, they have a pot of the best chowder at the Try Pots. Charged by Yojo (Queequeg's wooden idol) to seek a ship for the two of them, Ishmael comes upon the Pequod, a ship "with an old fashioned claw-footed look about her" and "apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with pendants of polished ivory." But the Pequod is not just exotic to Ishmael; he also calls it a "cannibal of a craft" because it is bejeweled with whale parts. On board, he makes a deal with Peleg and Bildad, the Quaker owners of the ship, characterized as conniving cheapskates and bitter taskmasters. Evaluating Ishmael for his lay (portion of the ship's proffts, a whaleman's wage), Peleg finally gives him the 300th lay. (This, Bildad says, is "generous.") At this time, Ishmael also learns that the ship's captain is Ahab, named after a wicked and punished Biblical king. Although Ahab has seemed a little moody since he lost his leg to the white whale Moby Dick, Bildad and Peleg believe in his competence. Ishmael does not meet the captain in person until much later.

Returning to the inn, Ishmael allows Queequeg a day for his "Ramadan" ceremonies and then becomes worried when his friend does not answer the door in the evening. When the panicking Ishmael finally gets the door open, he finds Queequeg deep in meditation. The next day, they return to the Pequod to sign Queequeg up. Though the owners object at first to Queequeg's paganism, the Kokovokan impresses them with his skill by hitting a spot of tar on a mast with a harpoon. They give him the 90th lay, "more than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket." Although Bildad still tries to convert Queequeg, Peleg tells him to give up. "Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers { it takes the shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish."

Just after signing the papers, the two run into a man named Elijah (a prophet, or just some frightening stranger) who hints to them about the peril of signing aboard Ahab's ship. They disregard him. For several days, there is preparation for the dangerous voyage. When they are near the ship, Ishmael thinks that he sees some "shadows" boarding the ship, but then dismisses the idea. Elijah warns them again just before they board.

Chapters 22-31

Summary

At Christmas, the ship finally heaves off from the port and Ishmael gets his first taste of the rigors of whaling life. As the boat sails away from civilization, Bulkington, a noble sailor that Ishmael saw at the Coffn inn, appears on the Pequod's decks, and makes Ishmael wax sentimental about the heroism in sailing into the deeps.

In the chapter called The Advocate, Ishmael defends the whaling profession in a series of arguments and responses. Whaling is a heroic business, he says, that is economically crucial (for the oil) and has resulted in geographical discovery. He finds the utmost dignity in whaling: a subject of good genealogy, worthy enough for Biblical writers and also educational. These, he says, are facts. He can't praise sperm whaling enough and even suggests that sperm oil has been used to anoint kings because it is the best, purest, and sweetest.

In the chapter called Knights and Squires, we meet the mates and their lieutenants. The first mate, Starbuck, is a pragmatic, reliable Nantucketer. Speaking about Starbuck leads Ishmael to carry on about the working man and democratic equality. The pipe-smoking second mate Stubb, a native of Cape Cod, is always cool under pressure and has "impious good humor."

Third mate Flask, a native of Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard, is a short, stocky fellow with a confrontational attitude and no reverence for the dignity of the whale. He is nicknamed "King-Post" because he resembles the short, square timber known by that name in Arctic whalers. Already introduced, Queequeg is Starbuck's harpooner. Stubb's "squire" is Tashtego, "an unmixed Indian from Gay Head" (Martha's Vineyard). Flask's harpooner is Daggoo, "a gigantic, coal-black negro-savage" from Africa with an imperial bearing.

The rest of the crew is also mostly international. But, says Ishmael, all these "Isolatoes" are "federated along one keel" and unified by accompanying Ahab. Ishmael also makes small mention of Pip, a poor Alabama boy who beats a tambourine on ship.

Ahab finally appears on deck and Ishmael observes closely. He sees Ahab as a very strong, willful figure, though his encounter with the whale has scarred him. Certainly, Ahab seems a bit psychologically troubled. Ahab's relationship to others on the boat is one of total dictatorship. When Stubb complains about Ahab's pacing, Ahab calls him a dog and advances on him.

Stubb retreats. The next morning, Stubb wakes up and explains to Flask that he had a dream that Ahab kicked him with his ivory leg. (The title of this chapter, Queen Mab, refers to Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, in which the character Mercutio talks about weird dreams.)

Chapters 32-40

"Cetology," as Ishmael explains, is "the science of whales." In the Cetology chapter and subsequent cetology- like chapters in the book, Ishmael tries to dissect whales scientifically. After including some quotations from previous writers on the whale, Ishmael says he here attempts a "draught" (draft) of a whale classification system that others can revise. He divides the whales into books and chapters (like today's Linnaean system that includes genus and species). His first subject is the sperm whale. At the end of the chapter, he pronounces it a "drought of a draught." The Specksynder is another cetology-like chapter in that it tries to dissect the whaling industry. Beginning with trivia about the changing role of the specksynder (literally, "fat-cutter"), who used to be chief harpooneer and captain, Ishmael moves on to a discussion of leadership styles, particularly that of royal or imperial leaders.

The chapter called The Cabin-Table returns to the plot, showing the ship's offcers at dinner. This is a rigid afiair over which Ahab presides. After the offcers finish, the table is re-laid for the harpooneers. Then Ishmael discusses his first post on the mast-head watching for whales. He writes a history of mast-heads and their present role on a whaling ship. Ishmael, who can rarely stick only to one subject or one level of thinking, discusses metaphorical meanings of what he sees. Then, in the chapter called The Quarter-Deck, he returns to narrative plot, dramatizing Ahab's first offcial appearance before the men. Ahab's call and response tests the crew, checking whether they know what to do, and unites them under his leadership.

Presenting a Spanish gold doubloon, he proclaims. "Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that while-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard uke - look ye, whosoever of ye raises that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!" The men cheer. Ahab then confesses, in response to Starbuck's query, that it was indeed this white whale Moby Dick who took off his leg, and announces his quest to hunt him down. The men shout together that they will hunt with Ahab, though Starbuck protests.

Ahab then begins a ritual that binds the crew together. He fills a cup with alcohol and everyone on the ship drinks from that agon. Telling the harpooners to cross their lances before him, Ahab grasps the weapons and anoints Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo "my three pagan kinsmen there -yon three most honorable gentlemen and noble men." He then makes them take the iron off of the harpoons to use as drinking goblets. They all drink together while Ahab proclaims, "God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!"

Another chapter beginning with a stage direction, Sunset is a melancholy monologue by Ahab. He says that everyone thinks he is mad and he agrees somewhat. He self- consciously calls himself "demoniac" and "madness maddened." Even though he seems to be the one orchestrating events, he does not feel in control: "The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run." Dusk is Starbuck's monologue. Though he feels that it will all come out badly, he feels inextricably bound to Ahab.

When he hears the revelry coming from the crew's forecastle, he laments the whole, doomed voyage. First Night-Watch is Stubb's monologue, giving another perspective on the voyage. Midnight, Forecastle is devoted to the jolly men who take turns showing off and singing together. They get into a fight when the Spanish Sailor makes fun of Daggoo. The onset of a storm, however, stops their fighting and makes them tend to the ship.

Chapters 41-47

Summary

Ishmael is meditative again, starting with a discussion of the white whale's history. Rumors about Moby Dick are often out of control, he says, because whale fishermen "are by all odds the most directly brought into contact with whatever is appallingly astonishing in the sea; face to face they not only eye its greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them." It is easy to attach metaphorical meaning or make up legend about dangerously intense, life-threatening experiences. Ishmael is skeptical, though, about assertions that Moby Dick is immortal. He admits that there is a singular whale called Moby Dick who is distinguished by his "peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump" and that this whale is known to have destroyed boats in a way that seems "intelligent." No wonder Ahab hates the white whale, says Ishmael, since it does seem that Moby Dick did it out of spite.

Intertwined with Moby Dick's history is Ahab's personal history. When the white whale took off Ahab's leg, the whale became to Ahab "the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung."

Ahab's reaction was to magnify the symbolism of the whale: the whale didn't just take off his leg, but represents everything that he hates and everything that torments him. Ahab went crazy on the trip home, says Ishmael, though he tried to appear sane.

The Whiteness of the Whale turns from what Moby Dick means to Ahab, to what it means to Ishmael. Above all, he says, it is the whiteness of the whale that appalls him. (Note Ishmael's pun{the root of the word "appall" literally means to turn white.) Ishmael begins his cross-cultural discussion of "whiteness" by saying how much it has been idealized as virtue or nobility.

To him, however, the color white only multiplies terror when it is attached with any object "terrible" in itself.

After a short dramatic scene (Hark!) where the sailors say to each other that they think there may be something or someone in the after-hold, Ishmael returns to an examination of Ahab in The Chart. Because Ahab believes that his skill with charts will help him locate Moby Dick, Ishmael discusses how one might scientifically track a whale. In The Afidavit, Ishmael explains in organized form "the natural verity of the main points of this afiair." He realizes that this story seems preposterous in many ways and wants to convince the reader that his story is real by listing the "true" bases for this story in quasi-outline form (first, personal experiences, then tales of whale fishermen or collective memory, and finally books). He then looks at why people may not believe these stories. Perhaps readers haven't heard about the perils or vivid adventures in the whaling industry, he says. Or maybe they do not understand the immensity of the whale. He asks that the audience use "human reasoning" when judging his story.

The chapter called Surmises returns the focus to Ahab, considering how the captain will accomplish his revenge. Because Ahab must use men as his tools, Ahab has to be very careful. How can he motivate them? Ahab can appeal to their hearts, but also he knows that cash will keep them going.

Ahab further knows that he has to watch that he does not leave himself open to charges of "usurpation." That is, he has to follow standard operating procedure, lest he give his offcers reason to overrule him.

The Mat-Maker returns to the plot. Ishmael describes slow, dreamy atmosphere on the ship when they are not after a whale. He and Queequeg are making a sword-mat, and, in a famous passage, likens their weaving to work on "the Loom of Time." (The threads of the warp are fixed like necessity.

Man has limited free will: he can interweave his own woof crossthreads into this fixed structure. When Queequeg's sword hits the loom and alters the overall pattern, Ishmael calls this chance.) What jolts him out of his reverie is Tashtego's call for a whale. Suddenly, everyone is busied in preparations for the whale hunt. Just as they are about to push off in boats, "five dusky phantoms" emerge around Ahab.

Chapters 48-54

Summary

These chapters return us to the action of Moby-Dick. We meet Fedallah for the first time, described as a dark, sinister figure with a Chinese jacket and turban made from coiling his own hair around his head. We also meet for the first time the "tiger-yellow ... natives of the Manillas" (Ahab's boat crew) who were hiding in the hold of the Pequod. The other crews are staring at the newly discovered shipmates, but Flask tells them to continue doing their jobs{that is, to concentrate on hunting the whale.

The Pequod's first lowering after the whale is not very successful. Queequeg manages to get a dart in the whale but the animal overturns the boat.

The men are nearly crushed by the ship as it passes looking for them, because a squall has put a mist over everything.

The chapter called The Hyena functions as a mooring of sorts{a self-conscious look back that puts everything in perspective. In this chapter, Ishmael talks about laughing at things, what a hyena is known for. Finding out that such dangerous conditions are typical, Ishmael asks Queequeg to help him make his will.

Ishmael then comments on Ahab's personal crew. Ahab's decision to have his own boat and crew, says Ishmael, is not a typical practice in the whaling industry. But however strange, "in a whaler, wonders soon wane" because there are so many unconventional sights in a whaler: the sheer variety of people, the strange ports of call, and the distance and disconnectedness of the ships themselves from land-based, conventional society. But even though whalemen are not easily awe-struck, Ishmael does say "that hair- turbaned Fedallah remained a mufied mystery to the last." He is "such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly."

Ishmael then focuses on Fedallah. On the masthead one night, the Parsee thinks he sees a whale spouting. The whole ship then tries to follow it, but the whale is not seen again until some days later. Ishmael calls it a "spirit-spout" because it seems to be a phantom leading them on. Some think it might be Moby Dick leading the ship on toward its destruction. The ship sails around the Cape of Good Hope (Africa), a particularly treacherous passage.

Through it all, Ahab commands the deck robustly and even when he is down in the cabin, he keeps his eye on the cabin-compass that tells him where the ship is going.

They soon see a ship called "The Goney," or Albatross, a vessel with a "spectral appearance" that is a long way from home. Of course, Ahab asks them as they pass by, "Have ye seen the White Whale?" While the other captain is trying to respond, a gust of wind blows the trumpet from his mouth.

Their wakes cross as both ships continue on. The Pequod continues its way around the world, Ishmael worries that this is dangerous{they might just be going on in mazes or will all be "[over]whelmed." Ishmael then explains that these two ships did not have a "gam." A gam, according to Ishmael, is "a social meeting of two (or more) Whale-ships, generally on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by boats' crews: the two captains remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other."

The Town-Ho's Story is a story within the larger story of Moby-Dick. During a gam with the ship Town-Ho (which they encounter after the Goney), a white sailor on the Town-Ho tells this story to Tashtego who shares it with all the men in the forecastle. Ishmael announces at the beginning of the chapter that he is telling us what he once told it to some friends in Lima. The basic story concerns Radney, a mate from Martha's Vineyard, and Steelkilt, a sailor from Bufialo who have a con ict on board the Town-Ho, a sperm whaler from Nantucket. Steelkit rebels against Radney's authority, assaults the mate (after the mate attacks him), and starts a mutiny. The mutineers are punished and released, but Steelkilt wants revenge. The ship runs into Moby Dick and, in the process of trying to harpoon him, Radney falls out of the boat. Moby Dick snatches him in his jaws. Ishmael's listeners don't necessarily believe him, but he swears on a copy of the Four Gospels that he is telling the truth.

Chapters 55-65

Summary

Here, Melville describes poor representations of whales. To a whaleman who has actually seen whales, many historical, mythological, and scientific sources seem inaccurate. As a result, says Ishmael, "you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is the one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last." The only solution Ishmael sees is to go whaling yourself. The next chapter tries to find some acceptable depictions. To Ishmael's taste the only things that are anywhere close are two large French engravings from a Garneray painting that show the Sperm and Right Whales in action. The following chapter tries to expand the discussion of representations of whales to include whales in various media. Ishmael then talks about how whalemen have been known to make scrimshaw. Whalemen who deal with whales so much start seeing whales everywhere, which is why he mentions stars.

The Brit chapter brings back the encyclopedic cetology chapter type. Brit is a minute yellow substance upon which the Right Whale largely feeds. Ishmael uses the chapter as a platform on which to talk about contradictory views of the sea (frightening "universal cannibalism") and the earth ("green, gentle, and most docile" land). Past the field of Brit in the water, Daggoo thinks that he sights Moby Dick. It is a false alarm, however, and it is only a giant squid.

In preparation for a later scene, says Ishmael, he will explain the whaleline. Made of hemp, this rope is connected to the harpoon at one end and free at the other so that it can be tied to other boats' lines. Because it whizzes out when a whale is darted, it is dangerous for the men in the boat.

We then return to more action, where Stubb kills a black sperm whale. Ishmael vigorously describes the gore to us. In The Dart, Ishmael backtracks, describing what a harpooneer does and how he uses a dart. Freely giving his opinion on whaling technique, Ishmael says that mates should throw both the dart and the lance because the harpooneer should be fresh, not tired from rowing. Then, to explain the crotch mentioned in the previous chapter, Ishmael backtracks again to describe the notched stick that furnishes a rest for the wooden part of the harpoon.

Ishmael then returns to the plot: Stubb wants to eat the freshly killed whale, although most whalemen do not. (Usually the only creatures that eat whale meat are sharks.) He calls on the black cook Fleece to make his supper and make the sharks stop eating the whale esh. In a sermon to the sharks, the cook tells them that they ought to be more civilized. Stubb and the cook get into a folksy religious discussion. He then likens Stubb to a shark. Ishmael then feels that he must describe what whale is like as a dish. Doing a historical survey of whale-as-dish, Ishmael remarks that no one except for Stubb and the "Esquimaux" accept it now. Deterrents include the exceedingly rich quality of the meat and its prodigious quantities.

Furthermore, it seems wrong because hunting the whale makes the meat a "noble dish" and one has to eat the meat by the whale's own light. But perhaps this blasphemy isn't so rare, says Ishmael, since the readers probably eat beef with a knife made from the bone of oxen or pick their teeth after eating goose with a goose feather.

Chapters 66-73

Summary

These chapters get into the minutiae of whaling technique. The Shark Massacre describes how sharks often swarm around dead whale carcasses, forcing whalemen to poke them with spades or kill them. Even when sharks are dead, they are often still dangerous: once, when Queequeg brought one on deck for its skin, it nearly took his hand off. There's no sacred Sabbath in whaling, since the gory business of cutting in occurs whenever there is a kill. Cutting in involves inserting a hook in the whale's blubber and peeling the blubber off as one might peel off an orange rind in one strip. Discussing the whale's blubber, Ishmael realizes that it is dificult to determine exactly what the whale's skin is. There is something thin and isinglass-like, but that's only the skin of the skin. If we decide that the blubber of the whale (the long pieces of which are called "blanket-pieces") is the skin, we are still missing something since blubber only accounts for 3/4 of the weight of the blanket-pieces. After cutting in, the whale is then released for its "funeral" in which the "mourners" are vultures and sharks. The frightful white carcass oats away and a "vengeful ghost" hovers over it, deterring other ships from going near it.

Ishmael backtracks in The Sphynx, saying that before whalers let a carcass go, they behead it in a "scientific anatomical feat." Ahab talks to this head, asking it to tell him of the horrors that it has seen. But Ahab knows that it doesn't speak and laments its inability to speak: too many horrors are beyond utterance.

The chapter about the Jeroboam (a ship carrying some epidemic) also backtracks, referring back to a story Stubb heard during the gam with the Town-Ho. A man, who had been a prophet among the Shakers in New York, proclaimed himself the archangel Gabriel on the ship and mesmerized the crew. Captain Mayhew wanted to get rid of him at the next port, but the crew threatened desertion. And the sailors aboard the Pequod now see this very Gabriel in front of them. When Captain Mayhew is telling Ahab a story about the White Whale, Gabriel keeps interrupting. According to Mayhew, the Jeroboam first heard about the existence of Moby Dick when they were speaking to another ship. Gabriel then warned against killing it, calling it the Shaker God incarnated. They ran into it about a year afterwards and the ship's leaders decided to hunt it. As the mate was standing in the ship to throw his lance, the whale ipped the mate into the air and tossed him into the sea. Nothing was harmed except for the mate, who drowned. Gabriel, the entire time, had been on the mast-head and said, basically, "I told you so." When Ahab confirms that he intends to hunt the white whale still, Gabriel points to him, saying, "Think, think of the blasphemer - dead, and down there! - beware of the blasphemer's end!" Ahab then realizes that the Pequod is carrying a letter for the dead mate and tries to hand it over to the captain on the end of a cutting-spade pole. Somehow, Gabriel gets a hold of it, impales it on the boat-knife, and sends it back to Ahab's feet as the Jeroboam pulls away.

Ishmael backtracks again in The Monkey-Rope to explain how Queequeg inserts the blubber hook. Ishmael, as Queequeg's bowsman, ties the monkey-rope around his waist as Queequeg is on the whale's oating body trying to attach the hook. (In a footnote, we learn that only on the Pequod were the monkey and this holder actually tied together, an improvement introduced by Stubb.) While Ishmael holds him, Tashtego and Daggoo are also ourishing their whale-spades to keep the sharks away. When Dough-Boy, the steward, offers Queequeg some tepid ginger and water, the mates frown at the in uence of pesky Temperance activists and make the steward bring him alcohol.

Meanwhile, as the Pequod oats along, they spot a right whale. After killing him, Stubb asks Flask what Ahab might want with this "lump of foul lard." Flask responds that Fedallah says that a whaler with a Sperm Whale's head on her starboard side and a Right Whale's head on her larboard will never afterwards capsize. They then get into a discussion in which both of them confess that they do not like Fedallah and think of him as "the devil in disguise." In this instance and always, Fedallah watches and stands in Ahab's shadow. Ishmael notes that the Parsee's shadow seemed to blend with and lengthen Ahab's.

Chapters 74-81

Summary

The paired chapters (74 and 75) do an anatomic comparison of the sperm whale's head and the right whale's head. In short, the sperm whale has a great well of sperm, ivory teeth, long lower jaw, and one external spout-hole; the right whale has bones shaped like Venetian blinds in his mouth, huge lower lip, a tongue, and one external spout- hole. Ishmael calls the right whale stoic and the sperm "platonian." The Battering-Ram discusses the blunt, large, wall-like part of the head that seems to be just a "wad." In actuality, inside the thin, sturdy casing is a "mass of tremendous life." He goes on to explain, in The Great Heidelberg Tun (a wine cask in Heidelberg with a capacity of 49,000 gallons), that there are two subdivisions of the upper part of a whale's head: the Case and the junk. The Case is the Great Heidelberg Tun since it contains the highly-prized spermaceti. Ishmael then dramatizes the tapping of the case by Tashtego. It goes by bucket from the "cistern" (well) once Tashtego finds the spot. In this scene, Tashtego accidentally falls in to the case. In panic, Daggoo fouls the lines and the head falls into the ocean. Queequeg dives in and manages to save Tashtego.

In The Prairie, Ishmael discusses the nineteenth-century arts of physiognomy (the art of judging human character from facial features)and phrenology (the study of the shape of the skull, based on the belief that it reveals character and mental capacity). By such analyses, the sperm whale's large, clear brow gives him the dignity of god. The whale's "pyramidical silence" demonstrates the sperm whale's genius. But later Ishmael abandons this line of analysis, saying that he isn't a professional. Besides, the whale wears a "false brow" because it really doesn't have much in its skull besides the spermy stufi. (The brain is about 10 inches big.) Ishmael then says that he would rather feel a man's spine to know him than his skull, throwing out phrenology. Judging by spines (which, like brains, are a network of nerves) would discount the smallness of the whale's brain and admire the wonderful comparative magnitude of his spinal cord. The hump becomes a sign of the whale's indomitable spirit.

The Jungfrau (meaning Virgin in German) is out of oil and meets the Pequod to beg for some. Ahab, of course, asks about the White Whale, but the Jungfrau has no information. Almost immediately after the captain of the Jungfrau steps off the Pequod's deck, whales are sighted and he goes after them desperately. The Pequod also gives chase and succeeds in harpooning the whale before the Germans. But, after bringing the carcass alongside the ship, they discover that the whale is sinking and dragging the ship along with it. Ishmael then discusses the frequency of sinking whales.

The Jungfrau starts chasing a fin-back, a whale that resembles a sperm whale to the unskilled observer.

Chapter 82-92

Summary

Ishmael strays from the main action of the plot again, diving into the heroic history of whaling. First, he draws from Greek mythology, the Judeo-Christian Bible, and Hindu mythology. He then discusses the Jonah story in particular (a story that has been shadowing this entire novel from the start) through the eyes of an old Sag-Harbor whaleman who is crusty and questions the Jonah story based on personal experience.

Ishmael then discusses pitchpoling by describing Stubb going through the motions (throwing a long lance from a jerking boat to secure a running whale). He then goes into a discursive explanation of how whales spout with some attempt at scientific precision. But he cannot define exactly what the spout is, so he has to put forward a hypothesis: the spout is nothing but mist, like the "semi- visible steam" that proceeds from the head of ponderous beings such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and himself! In the next chapter, he celebrates a whale's most famous part: his tail. He likes its potential power and lists its difierent uses.

When the Pequod sails through the straits of Sunda (near Indonesia) without pulling into any port, Ishmael takes the opportunity to discuss how isolated and self- contained a whaleship is. While in the straits, they run into a great herd of sperm whales swimming in a circle (the "Grand Armada"){ but as they are chasing the whales, they are being chased by Malay pirates. They try to "drugg" the whales so that they can kill them on their own time.

(There are too many to try to kill at once.) They escape the pirates and go in boats after the whales, somehow ending up inside their circle, a placid lake.

But one whale, who had been pricked and was oundering in pain, panics the whole herd. The boats in the middle are in danger but manage to get out of the center of the chaos. They try to "waif" the whales{that is, mark them as the Pequod's to be taken later. Ishmael then goes back to explaining whaling terms, staring with "schools" of whales. The schoolmaster is the head of the school, or the lord. The all-male schools are like a "mob of young collegians." Backtracking to a reference in Chapter 87 about waifs, Ishmael explains how the waif works as a symbol in the whale fishery. He goes on to talk about historical whaling codes and the present one that a Fast- Fish belongs to the party fast to it and a Loose-Fish is fair came for anybody who can soonest catch it. A fish is fast when it is physically connected (by rope, etc.) to the party after it or it bears a waif, says Ishmael. Lawyer- like, Ishmael cites precedents and stories, to show how dificult it is to maintain rules. In Heads or Tails, he mentions the strange problem with these rules in England because the King and Queen claim the whale. Some whalemen in Dover (or some port near there, says Ishmael) lost their whale to the Duke because he claimed the power delegated him from the sovereign.

Returning to the narrative, Ishmael says they come up on a French ship Bouton de Rose (Rose-Button or Rose- Bud). This ship has two whales alongside: one "blasted whale" (one that died unmolested on the sea) that is going to have nothing useful in it and one whale that died from indigestion.

Stubb asks a sailor about the White Whale? Never seen him, is the answer. Crafty Stubb then asks why the man is trying to get oil out of these whales when clearly there is none in either whale. The sailor on the Rose-Bud says that his captain, on his first trip, will not believe the sailor's own statements that the whales are worthless. Stubb goes aboard to tell the captain that the whales are worthless, although he knows that the second whale might have ambergris, an even more precious commodity than spermaceti. Stubb and the sailor make up a little plan in which Stubb says ridiculous things in English and the sailor says, in French, what he himself wants to say. The captain dumps the whales. As soon as the Rose-Bud leaves, Stubb mines and finds the sweet- smelling ambergris.

Ishmael, in the next chapter, explains what ambergris is: though it looks like mottled cheese and comes from the bowel of whales, ambergris is actually used for perfumes. He uses dry legal language to describe ambergris and discuss its history even though he acknowledges that poets have praised it.

Ishmael then looks at where the idea that whales smell bad comes from. Some whaling vessels might have skipped cleaning themselves a long time ago, but the current bunch of South Sea Whalers always scrub themselves clean. The oil of the whale works as a natural soap.

Chapters 93-101

Summary

These are among the most important chapters in Moby- Dick. In The Castaway, Pip, who usually watches the ship when the boats go out, becomes a replacement in Stubb's boat. Having performed passably the first time out, Pip goes out a second time and this time he jumps from the boat out of anxiety. When Pip gets foul in the lines, and his boatmates have to let the whale go free to save him, he makes them angry. Stubb tells him never to jump out of the boat again because Stubb won't pick him up next time. Pip, however, does jump again, and is left alone in the middle of the sea's "heartless immensity." Pip goes mad.

A Squeeze of the Hand, which describes the baling of the case (emptying the sperm's head), is one of the funniest chapters in the novel. Because the spermaceti quickly cools into lumps, the sailors have to squeeze it back into liquid. Here, Ishmael goes overboard with his enthusiasm for the "sweet and unctuous" sperm. He squeezes all morning long, getting sentimental about the physical contact with the other sailors, whose hands he encounters in the sperm. He goes on to describe the other parts of the whale, including the euphemistically-named "cassock" (the whale's penis). This chapter is also very funny, blasphemously likening the whale's organ to the dress of clergymen because it has some pagan mysticism attached to it. It serves an actual purpose on the ship: the mincer wears the black "pelt" of skin from the penis to protect himself while he slices the horse-pieces of blubber for the pots.

Ishmael then tries to explain the try-works, heavy structures made of pots and furnaces that boil the blubber and derive all the oil from it. He associates the try-works with darkness and a sense of exotic evil: it has "an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres." Furthermore, the pagan harpooneers tend it. Ishmael also associates it with the red fires of Hell that, in combination with the black sea and the dark night, so disorient him that he loses sense of himself at the tiller. Everything becomes "inverted," he says, and suddenly there is "no compass before me to steer by."

In a very short chapter, Ishmael describes in The Lamp how whalemen are always in the light because their job is to collect oil from the seas. He then finishes describing how whale's oil is processed: putting the oil in casks and cleaning up the ship. Here he dismisses another myth about whaling: whalers are not dirty. Sperm whale's oil is a fine cleaning agent. But Ishmael admits that whalers are hardly clean for a day when the next whale is sighted and the cycle begins again.

Ishmael returns to talking about the characters again, showing the reactions of Ahab, Starbuck, Stubb, Flask, the Manxman, Queequeg, Fedallah, and Pip to the golden coin fixed on the mainmast. Ahab looks at the doubloon from Ecuador and sees himself and the pains of man. Starbuck sees some Biblical significance about how man can find little solace in times of trouble. Stubb, first saying he wants to spend it, looks deeper at the doubloon because he saw his two superiors gazing meaningfully at it. He can find little but some funny dancing zodiac signs. Then Flask approaches, and says he sees "nothing here, round thing made of gold and whoever raises a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So what's all this staring been about?" Pip is the last to look at the coin and says, prophetically, that here's the ship's "navel"{ something at the center of the ship, holding it together.

Then the Pequod meets the Samuel Enderby, a whaling ship from London with a jolly captain and crew. The first thing Ahab asks, of course, is if they have seen Moby Dick. The captain, named Boomer, has, and is missing an arm because of it. The story is pretty gory, but Boomer does not dwell too much on the horrible details, choosing instead to talk about the hot rum toddies he drank during his recovery. The ship encountered the white whale again but did not want to try to fasten to it. Although the people on board the Enderby think he is crazy, Ahab insists on knowing which way the whale went and returns to his ship to pursue it.

In the next chapter, Ishmael backtracks, to explain why the name Enderby is significant: this man fitted the first ever English sperm whaling ship.

Ishmael then exuberantly explains the history behind Enderby's before telling the story of the particular whaler Samuel Enderby. The good food aboard the Enderby earns the ship the title "Decanter."

Chapter 102-114

Summary

Ishmael now tries another tactic for interpreting the whale. In the chapter called A Bower in the Arsacides, he discusses how he learned to measure a whale's bones. When he was visiting his friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, he lived in a culture in which the whale skeleton was sacred. After telling how he learned to measure, he goes on to tell the results of the measurements. He begins with the skull, the biggest part, then the ribs, and the spine. But these bones, he cautions, give only a partial picture of the whale since so much esh is wrapped around them. A person cannot still find good representation of a whale in its entirety.

And Ishmael continues to "manhandle" the whale, self- consciously saying that he does the best he knows how. So he decides to look at the Fossil Whale from an "archaeological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view." He can't be too grandiloquent with his exaggerated words and diction because the whale itself is so grand. He ashes credentials again, this time as a geologist and then discusses his finds. But, again, he is unsatisfied: "the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully invested body." But this chapter does give a sense of the whale's age and his pedigree.

Ishmael finally gives up, in awe, deconstructing the whale- -now he wants to know if such a fabulous monster will remain on the earth. Ishmael says that though they may not travel in herds anymore, though they may have changed haunting grounds, they remain. Why? Because they have established a new home base at the poles, where man cannot penetrate; because they've been hunted throughout history and still remain; because the whale population is not in danger for survival since many generations of whales are alive at the same time.

Ahab asks the carpenter to make him a new leg because the one he uses is not trustworthy. After hitting it heavily on the boat's wooden oor when he returned from the Enderby, he does not think it will keep holding. Indeed, just before the Pequod sailed, Ahab had been found lying on the ground with the whalebone leg gouging out his thigh. So the carpenter, the do-it-all man on the ship, has to make Ahab a new prosthetic leg. They discuss the feeling of a ghost leg. When Ahab leaves, the carpenter thinks he is a little queer.

A sailor then informs Ahab, in front of Starbuck, that the oil casks are leaking. The sailor suggests that they stop to fix them, but Ahab refuses to stop, saying that he doesn't care about the owners or profft. Starbuck objects and Ahab points a musket at him. Says Starbuck, "I ask thee not to beware of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man." In cleaning out the stowed oil casks, Queequeg falls sick. Thinking he is going to die, Queequeg orders a coffn made. He lies in it and closes the cover, as Pip dances around the coffn. Soon, Queequeg feels well again and gets out. Ishmael attributes this to his "savage" nature.

In The Pacific, Ishmael gets caught up in the meditative, serene Pacific Ocean. At the end of the chapter, he comes back to Ahab, saying that no such calming thoughts entered the brain of the captain. Ishmael then pans over to the blacksmith whose life on land disintegrated. With characteristic panache, Ishmael explains that the sea beckons to broken-hearted men who long for death but cannot commit suicide. The Forge dramatizes an exchange between the blacksmith and Ahab in which the captain asks the blacksmith to make a special harpoon to kill the white whale. Although Ahab gives the blacksmith directions, he takes over the crafting of the harpoon himself, hammering the steel on the anvil and tempering it with the blood of the three harpooneers (instead of water). The scene ends with Pip's laughter.

In The Gilder, Ishmael considers how the dreaminess of the sea masks a ferocity. He speaks of the sea as "gilt" because it looks golden in the sun-set and is falsely calm. The sea even makes Starbuck rhapsodize, making an apostrophe (direct address of an absent or imaginary person or of a personified abstraction, especially as a digression in the course of a speech or composition) to the sea; Stubb answers him by surprise and, as usual, makes light of the situation.

Chapters 115-125

Summary

These chapters show how badly off the Pequod really is. The somber Pequod, still on the lookout for Moby Dick, runs into the Bachelor, a festive Nantucket whaler on its way home with a full cargo. The captain of the Bachelor, saying that he has only heard stories of the white whale and doesn't believe them, invites Ahab and the crew to join his party. Ahab declines. The next day, the Pequod kills several whales and the way that a dying whale turns towards the sun spurs Ahab to speak out to it in wondrous tones. While keeping a night vigil over a whale that was too far away to take back to the ship immediately, Ahab hears from Fedallah the prophecy of his death. Before Ahab can die, he must see two hearses, one "not made by mortal hands" and one made of wood from America; and only hemp can kill the captain. Back on the ship, Ahab holds up a quadrant, an instrument that gauges the position of the sun, to determine the ship's latitude. Ahab decides that it does not give him the orienteering information he wants and tramples it underfoot. He orders the ship to change direction.

The next day, the Pequod is caught in a typhoon. The weird weather makes white ames appear at the top of the three masts and Ahab refuses to let the crew put up lightning rods to draw away the danger. While Ahab marvels at the ship's three masts lit up like three spermaceti candles, hailing them as good omens and signs of his own power, Starbuck sees them as a warning against continuing the journey. When Starbuck sees Ahab's harpoon also ickering with fire, he says that this is a sign that God is against Ahab. Ahab, however, grasps the harpoon, and says, in front of a frightened crew, there is nothing to fear in the enterprise that binds them all together. He blows out the ame to "blow out the last fear. "In the next chapter, Starbuck questions Ahab's judgment again{this time saying that they should pull down the main-top-sail yard. Ahab says that they should just lash it tighter, complaining that his first mate must think him incompetent. On the bulwarks of the forecastle, Stubb and Flask are having their own conversation about the storm and Ahab's behavior. Stubb basically dominates the conversation and says that this journey is no more dangerous than any other is even though it seems as if Ahab is putting them in extreme danger. Suspended above them all on the main-top-sail yard, Tashtego says to himself that sailors don't care that much about the storm, just rum. When the storm finally dies down, Starbuck goes below to report to Ahab. On the way to Ahab's cabin, he sees a row of muskets, including the very one that Ahab had leveled at him earlier. Angry about Ahab's reckless and selfish behavior, he talks to himself about whether he ought to kill his captain. He decides he cannot kill Ahab in his sleep and goes up.

When Ahab is on deck the next day, he realizes that the storm has thrown off the compasses. Ahab then pronounces himself "lord over the level loadstone yet" and makes his own needle. Here Ishmael comments, "In this fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his fatal pride." With all the other orienteering devices out of order, Ahab decides to pull out the seldom-used log and line. Because of heat and moisture, the line breaks and Ahab realizes that he now has none of his original orienteering devices. He calls for Pip to help him and Pip answers with nonsense. Ahab, touched by Pip's crazy speeches, says that his cabin will now be Pip's because they boy "touchest [his] inmost center."

Chapters 126-132

Sailors are very superstitious. As the Pequod approaches the Equatorial fishing ground, the sailors think that they hear ghosts wailing. The Manxman (man from the Isle of Man) says that these are the voices of the newly drowned men in the sea. Ahab says nonsense. When the Pequod's life-buoy falls overboard and sinks, the sailors think it is a fulfillment of evil that was foretold. The offcers decide to replace the life-buoy with Queequeg's coffn.

Though the carpenter grumbles about having to transform the object, Ahab, who is aware of the irony of the substitution, nevertheless calls the carpenter "unprincipled as the gods" for going through with the substitution.

The Pequod encounters the ship Rachel while it is looking for Moby Dick in these waters. Captain Gardiner of the , after afirming that he has indeed seen Moby Dick, climbs aboard Ahab's ship and begs Ahab to help him find his son, whose whaleboat was lost in the chase after the white whale. Ahab refuses. Now that Ahab knows that the white whale is near, he spends a lot of time walking the decks. As Ahab goes up one time, Pip wants to follow him. Ahab tells him to stay in the captain's cabin, lest Pip's insanity start to cure his own just when he's getting close to the whale and needs to be a little crazy.

And so Ahab, shadowed everywhere by Fedallah, remains on deck, ever watchful. This continuous watch sharpens Ahab's obsession and he decides that he must be the first to sight the whale. He asks Starbuck to help him get up the main-mast head and watch his rope. When he is there, a black hawk steals his hat; Ishmael this considers a bad omen. The Pequod then runs into the miserably misnamed ship Delight. The Delight has indeed encountered Moby Dick, but the result was a gutted whaleboat and dead men. As the Pequod goes by, the Delight drops a corpse in the water and sprinkles the Pequod's hull with a "ghostly baptism."

In the chapter called The Symphony, disparage parts come together for a crescendo. The pressure finally gets to Ahab and he seems human here, dropping a tear into the sea. He and Starbuck have a bonding moment as Ahab sadly talks about his continual, tiring whaling. He calls himself a fool and thinks himself pathetic. Starbuck suggests giving up the chase, but Ahab wonders if he can stop because he feels pushed on by Fate. But as Ahab is asking these grand questions, Starbuck steals away. When Ahab goes to the other side of the deck to gaze into the water, Fedallah, too, is looking over the rail.

Chapters 133-Epilogue

Summary

Ahab can sense by smell that Moby Dick is near. Climbing up to the main royal-mast head, Ahab spots Moby Dick and earns himself the doubloon. All the boats set off in chase of the whale. When Moby Dick finally surfaces, he stoves Ahab's boat. The whale is swimming too fast away from them and they all return to the ship.

Saying that persistent pursuit of one whale has historically happened before, Ishmael comments that Ahab still desperately wants to chase Moby Dick though he has lost one boat. They do sight Moby Dick again and the crewmen, growing increasingly in awe of Ahab and caught up in the thrill of the chase, lower three boats. Starbuck stays to mind the Pequod. Ahab tries to attack Moby Dick head on this time, but again, Moby Dick is triumphant.

He stoves Ahab's ship and breaks his false leg. When they return to the Pequod, Ahab finds out that Fedallah is gone, dragged down by Ahab's own line. Starbuck tells him to stop, but Ahab, convinced that he is only the "Fate's lieutenant," says he must keep pursuing the whale.

. Still on the look out, the crew spots the white whale for a third time but sees nothing until Ahab realizes, "Aye, he's chasing me now; not I, him{ that's bad." They turn the ship around completely and Ahab mounts the masthead himself. He sights the spout and lowers again. As he gets into his boat and leaves Starbuck in charge, the two men exchange a poignant moment in which Ahab asks to shake hands with his first made and the first mate tries to tell him not to go. Dangerously, sharks bite at the oars as the boats pull away.

Starbuck, in a monologue, laments Ahab's sure doom. On the water, Ahab sees Moby Dick breach. Seeing Fedallah strapped to the whale by turns of rope, Ahab realizes that this is the first hearse that the Parsee had forecasted. The whale goes down again and Ahab rows close to the ship. He tells Tashtego to find another ag and nail it to the main masthead. The boats soon see the white whale again and go after him. But Moby Dick only turns around, and heads for the Pequod at full speed. He smashes the ship.

It goes down without its captain. The ship, Ahab realizes, is the second hearse. Impassioned, Ahab is now determined to strike at Moby Dick with all of his power: "Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffns and all hearses to one common pool and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!" After darting the whale, Ahab is caught around the neck by the ying line. He is dragged under the sea. Tashtego, meanwhile, is still trying to nail the ag to the ship's spar as it goes down. He catches a sky-hawk in mid-hammer and the screaming bird, folded in the ag, goes down with everything else.

In the Epilogue, Ishmael wraps up the story, saying that he is the only one who survives the wreck. All the boats and ship were ruined. Ishmael survives only because Queequeg's coffn bobs up and becomes his life buoy. A day after the wreck, the Rachel, still cruising for her first lost son, saves Ishmael.

 

 

The Scarlet Letter

Introduction-Chapter 1

Introduction: The first forty-four pages written by the author tell about his life working at the Custom House in Salem Massachusetts. During his time of employment there, he discovers some records in the attic and begins to piece together the story of Hester Prynne, an adulterous man in Puritan Salem. The Scarlet Letter is his account of the story with as many facts as he, the author, was able to gather from the documents he found. Chapter 1: Hawthorn’s first chapter is short, detailing the set up of colonial Salem. He talks of the town and how essential prisons and cemeteries are in the organization. Next to the steps of the Salem prison is a rosebush that has survived centuries and Hawthorn says this bush gives comfort with it’s beauty to the people who enter and leave the establishment.

Chapter 2: A town meeting is taking place and the people of the town, mainly the women, are gathered for the release of the adulteress, Hester Prynne. She steps out of the prison with the town beadle leading her with his hand on her shoulder. Hawthorn describes her as beautiful with a very proud stature that does not cower to the crowd of disdain that surrounds her. On her chest she bears the scarlet letter ‘A’ that is surrounded by shining gold thread upon a gown that scandalizes the women of the town. 

Clutched close to her breast is the child that was produced by her adultery and the apparent reason she was not more harshly punished for her crime. She stood there under public scrutiny, not with a look of shame but almost bewilderment that her life had panned out as it had. 

Chapter 3: Mistress Prynne is placed upon the pillory for three hours so all can see her shame. As she is standing there with her babe, she notices a new man in town along with an Indian. From the moment she sees him, she cannot take her eyes from him. An angry look quickly flashes across the man’s face at the sight of her and he inquires to the town person next to him why the woman is made to stand upon the pillory. Both the man and the readers are informed that Mistress Prynne was married to a man who has not yet returned from the Netherlands where they sailed from to New England.

 Because she was so long away from her husband, it is obvious that he was not the father of her child. The man asked of her sentence, and of the man who did father the child and the town’s person told him that the father is not known. The Governor of the town who is standing on a higher platform then appeals to the Reverend Dimmesdale to extract the name of father from Mistress Prynne. After an emotional plea to Mistress Prynne, she still refuses to state the name of the father of her child, and states that her child has only a heavenly father.

Chapter 4: When Mistress Prynne was returned to the prison, she was in such mental disarray that the jailer, Master Brackett, decided to call in the physician. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s real husband, introduces himself as the physician for Mistress Prynne and as soon as he enters the room, she goes perfectly still. Mr. Chillingsworth was the same man who she saw when she was on the pillory. He began to examine the baby and Hester expresses her concern that he will hurt the child as revenge on her.

 They talk about their failed marriage, and how there was never love between them, and Roger tells her not to reveal to anyone who he really was. After giving her a draught to calm her, he asks her who the father of the child was. Again, as she did when asked by the Reverend, she refuses to give the name of the father. At her refusal, he tells her that he will find out who the man is and that she not breathe a word of his identity to anyone.

Chapter 5: Hester was released from prison and free to go wherever she wished. Instead of fleeing the town she moved to a little cottage outside of it, and supported herself with her needlework. She sewed for many different people of the town but kept herself in plain clothing, save the letter upon her bosom. She took all of the passion of her life and used it to ply her needle. Much of her work she donated to the poor as penance for her guilt. Although they all coveted her services, she was still an outcast looked upon with malice and her sin burned deep in her soul.

Chapter 6: Hester named her child Pearl because she was her treasure in life. Pearl was beautiful and intelligent, and had an air of a nymph about her. Even as a baby, the child was fascinated by the scarlet letter Hester wore upon her breast. This was a constant reminder for Hester of her sin. Pearl was a happy laughing child who had a fiery passion and temper that made Hester and others wonder if she was a demon with her black eyes. Everywhere Hester went Pearl went also. They had only each other. Hester attempted to raise her daughter with Puritan values but could not discipline her and Pearl held the strings on whether or not she did what she was told. Chapter 7: Hester and Pearl went to the Governor Bellingham’s house to deliver a pair of gloves she had embroidered for him. More than the delivery, Hester was there to plead to be able to keep Pearl. The people of the town thought that because of her sin, Hester was unfit to raise her child. When she arrived to the house, the governor was with other gentleman in the garden and they waited for a chance to speak with him. As they were waiting, Pearl was examining a shining suit of armor and saw Hester in it. She was delighted by the sight, and Hester’s image was lost behind the large shiny red letter that was magnified by the polished armor.

Chapter 8: The Governor, the pastor John Wilson, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth exited the garden to find their path blocked by the nymph Pearl. Struck by the beauty of the scarlet clad child they ask her to whom she belongs. She answers that she is Pearl, and her mother’s child. As they enter the hall, they see Mistress Prynne and are happy that she has come so they can discuss what to do with Pearl. Testing to see whether the child has been properly instructed so far, the dotting John Winston asks young Pearl who made her. Pearl, though she knew the correct answer was the Heavenly Father answered that she had been plucked by her mother from the rose bush by the prison door. 

The gentlemen were appalled by the child’s answer and decided that Hester should not raise her further. Hester was angry with this and pleaded Reverend Dimmesdale who knew she was capable of guiding the child spiritually to let her keep Pearl. She argued that God gave her Pearl, and that they could not take away the only joy that God gave her. After discussing it further among themselves, with the Reverend giving an impassioned plea for Hester, they decided to let her keep Pearl. Hester was thankful, and she and Pearl left for home. Mr. Chillingworth offered to figure out the identity of the father of the child, but his offer was refused. As she leaves, Hester realizes that she would have sold her soul to the devil if it meant she could keep her child. 

Chapter 9: Since his first appearance in town, the people looked on Roger Chillingworth as a blessing. They were thankful that such a learned physician was given to them. As time went on, Mr. Chillingworth and the Reverend Dimmesdale became very close. Though he was young, the Reverend was growing sicker and sicker by the day and the people of the town implored him to let the physician examine him. He refused but continued to become closer and closer to the old man. After a while they even began living together in the home of a respected matron of the town. As time passed, the people began to look at Mr. Chillingworth differently however. Instead of seeing a man sent from God to help them, they saw in his old disfigured form, a servant of Satan that was sent to haunt the Reverend.

Chapter 10: Mr. Chillingworth watched the Reverend searching him for the secret sin of his soul. Searching for Hester’s lover became the secret purpose of his life and it clouded his head and heart. Slowly he was trying to get the Reverend to confess to the deed, and one afternoon began a discussion with him about unconfessed sin and how it eats away at the soul. While they are talking, they see Hester and Pearl in the cemetery. They look up at the men in the window and they wonder if the mischevious nymph like, Pearl, is true evil. After the woman and the child leave the cemetery, the men continue with their conversation.

 Mr. Chillingworth accuses the Reverend that he cannot cure him until he knows the pain upon his soul because that sin is part of his bodily ailment. In a moment of passion, the Reverend blows up at him telling him that he will reveal nothing to the earthly man and leaves the room. This display of passion makes Mr. Chillingworth exceptionally pleased because it brings him closer to finding out that his suspicions of Hester and the Reverend are true.

Chapter 11: As the days went by the Reverend Dimmesdale continued to be haunted more and more by the sin upon his soul. He would look upon his companion the physician with disgust and feel as if the black part of his heart was spilling over into the rest of his life. The people of the town began to worship him more, saying he was a wonderful and saintly young preacher. As they looked up to him with greater fervor, he began to hate himself more. Many a time he stood on his pulpit aching to tell them of his sin, release it from his heart. However, all he could manage to say was that he was a terrible sinner, which only inspired his congregation more because they saw him as virtually flawless. He fasted, prayed, and kept vigils in order to purge himself, but the sin upon his soul haunted him without end. 

Chapter 12: It was midnight and Reverend Dimmesdale was so tortured by his sin that he took himself out and stood upon the scaffold that Hester had stood. He planned to stay there all night suffering from his own shame. At one point he cried out hoping in his mind to wake the whole town so they could see him standing there, so his sin could finally be revealed and his mind eased. However, no one in the town was awakened by his cry. At one point from his perch, he saw the Pastor John Winston walking towards him, but the man was wrapped up tightly in his cloak and did not notice the Reverend on the scaffold. 

His mind wandered to what he would look like in the morning when his body was frozen with cold, and at the image of himself in his mind, he laughed. His laugh was returned by a sprightly laugh in the darkness that was none other than Pearl’s. He cried out to her in the night, and to Hester. They appeared having been out measuring a robe for a man who had died that evening. At the Reverend’s request, they came to stand upon the scaffold with him and they joined hands in their sin. Pearl asked the Reverend repeatedly if he would come stand with them on the scaffold the next day at noon, but the Dimmesdale refused. Out of the darkness, Mr. Chillingworth appeared, and the Reverend spoke his fear and hatred of the man. He asked who he really was, and because of her oath, Hester kept her silence. Pearl whispered gibberish to him in revenge for him not standing with them the next day on the scaffold. The Reverend looked up into the sky and saw a meteor trail that looked like a large red ‘A’ leering at him. Mr. Chillingworth told him to come home and he left the scaffold with the evilly happy physician.

Chapter 13: Seven years had passed since little Pearl’s birth. The letter on Hester’s chest to the village people had become a symbol of her good deeds. It set her apart from the general population, but many looked on her as a sister of charity. When someone was in need she was always the one by his or her side. Many people in town said the A stood for able. She had changed. She was an empty form, void of the passion and love that people were able to see in her before.

 Her luxurious hair was always hidden from the sight of the people. After the minister’s vigil, Hester found a new cause for sacrifice, a new purpose. She decided to talk to the old physician, her former husband, and try to save his victim from further mental torture. After making her decision, she came upon him as he was walking the peninsula.

Chapter 14: Hester instructed Pearl to go run and play and she went to a pool and saw herself there. Hester accosted Mr. Chillingworth and he began telling her of all the good things the people in the town had said about her. The leaders in the town at the last council meeting had even thought about admitting Hester to take the letter off her bosom. Hester told him that if the Lord meant her to take it off her chest that it would have fallen off long ago. While they began talking, Hester took a good look at him. In the past seven years he had aged well, but there was a strikingly different look about him. He wore a guarded look of an eager angry man who was out for revenge.

They began talking about the minister and Mr. Chillingworth reveals that had it not been for his care, the minister would have died long ago. Hester asks if he has not had enough revenge since he was able to torture the minister every day by burying into his heart. He answers no, that it will never be enough. Hester tells him that she plans on revealing his secret to the minister and he tells her that neither of them are sinful and evil, they just must lead the lives that they were given because of her sin. They say farewell, and Hester leaves him to gathering herbs.

Chapter 15: Hester watches him for a while from a distance disgusted at the evil she sees in him. She turns to find little Pearl who was playing with all the different things in nature. When Pearl goes back to her mother, Hester sees that the child has made a letter A out of seaweed and placed it on her chest. Hester asks the child if she knows what the letter her mother wears means. Pearl answers that it is the same reason the minister keeps his hand over his chest. 

That is all she knows however, and she asks earnestly why she wears the scarlet letter, and why the minister places his hand over his heart. Ever since she was little, Pearl had a certain fascination with the letter that tortured her mother even more. Hester decided it was better to not unburden her sin upon her child and told her daughter that it meant nothing. After that day however, Pearl would ask her mother two or three times a day what the scarlet letter meant.

Chapter 16: : Hester learned that the Minister had gone into the woods to visit a friend who lived among the Indians. She learned when he was expected to return, and when the day came, she and Pearl went into the forest so she could catch him on his return and speak with him in private. As they enter the forest, Pearl says that she can stand in the sunlight, but the sunlight runs away from Hester. In response, Hester reaches out to touch the stream of light that flocks around the little elf-child, and it vanishes when her hand comes near. Pearl then asks her mother for a story about the black man who inhabits the forest, which she over heard a woman the previous evening talking about. Pearl said that people went into the forest and signed the Black man’s book with their blood and that she heard the scarlet letter was the black man’s mark on her mother. They traveled into the deep into the forest and stopped next to a little brook that Pearl began playing around. After a while, they saw the Reverend Dimmesdale come walking slowly down the path, and Hester tells Pearl to run and play. 

Chapter 17: Hester calls out to the Minister and he instantly straightens up and looks towards her. He finds out it is she and they inquire on how their lives have been in the last seven years. They sit down together on a log, and ask each other if they have found peace. The minister expresses his sadness and how he feels like a hypocrite teaching others to be holy, when he himself has a terrible hidden sin. Hester tries to help him by talking with him and caring for him. He thanks her for her friendship. She then tells him of Roger Chillingsworth, how he is her husband, and out for revenge. Dimmesdale is horrified but knew that something was wrong with Roger Chillingworth. Hester could not take the frown that descended upon his face, and asked him if he forgave her. He has, and she asks if he remembers what they had. She hints that they once had a great passion and affection for each other. Hester talks of them leaving together. Arthur says he has not the strength to travel that far, but with Hester helping him, they thought they could do it.

Chapter 18: Together they decide to leave the New World together and not torture themselves further with their sin so that only God will judge them. To them, they are damned already. Hester unhooks her scarlet letter and tosses it by the bubbling brook. They make plans together and say that they will leave for England on the ship that is in the harbor. Talking of their love and their plans, they call back Pearl, for once happy and with lifted spirits. Pearl is off in the forest playing and interacting with the animals. When they call her back, Pearl comes slowly when she sees them sitting together.

 Chapter 19: They sat there looking at Pearl as she approached. She had adorned herself with wild flowers and looked like a fairy child. They rejoiced in their child as she came towards him, and Arthur was exceptionally afraid and anxious for the interview. Pearl stopped at the brook and stared at them. The child pointed at her mother with a frown. Hester called out to her harshly to come and Pearl began screaming and throwing a tantrum. Hester realized that the child was upset that her scarlet letter was not affixed to her mother’s breast. She walked over to where it lay on the ground and showed it to the child. She pinned it back into place, and Pearl was pacified and happy again. They approached the minister and the three of them held hands, and they tried to explain to her that they were all going to be a happy family. The minister kissed Pearl’s forehead and she ran quickly to the brook to try to wash it away.

Chapter 20: Arthur Dimmesdale walked home happily. For the first time in seven years, there was a bounce in his step and a light in his hurting heart. On his way, he saw some of his parishioners and he had thoughts of corruption on his mind. He thought about the reaction he would get if he whispered corrupting things in their ears. There are three different people he runs into in which he feels this. He resists the temptation to do this, and wonders why he is having these thoughts. He wonders if he signed the black man’s book in the forest with his blood. He runs into a woman known as the town witch, and she tells him the next time he wants to go into the forest she would go with him. When he arrives home, Mr. Chillingworth comes into his room, and the Reverend refuses to take anymore of his medicine. He sits at his desk and reworks the sermon he had planned for the following celebration. 

Chapter 21: A public holiday because of the election was planned and everyone from that and the neighboring towns attended in their best clothing. Hester and little Pearl attended but stayed slightly apart from the crowd. Though everyone was packed close to see the parade, there was an empty circle around Hester because of her scarlet letter. She had gone previously to make plans with the captain of the ship that they were going to take to England, and she saw the captain of that vessel talking to Roger Chillingworth. The captain then came over to her and informed her that the physician would be attending the voyage with them. She looked towards him, and he smiled at her evilly.

Chapter 22: The parade began and Pearl saw the minister when he reached the front. She asked if that was the same minister who kissed her in the woods, and Hester told her to not talk about it in the marketplace. Mistress Hibbins approached her and began talking to Hester about the minister. Hester denied any involvement with him, and they began watching as he preached to the people. Pearl left her mother and wandered around. The captain of the ship told Pearl to give her mother a message for him. She told him that her father was the Prince of Air. She threatened him and ran to her mother. Hester’s mind wandered and thought about how she would soon be free of he scarlet letter and the pain associated with it.

 Chapter 23: The minister ended his incredible speech and it was one of the best of his life. The people were inspired and as the parade turned therefor, everyone would exit. The minister looked exceptionally sick and called to Hester and Pearl to come to him. Roger Chillingworth ran towards and tried to get Hester back from the minister. He is dying and with his last breaths he shouts his sin to the audience around and blesses Hester and Pearl. He tells the people to take another better look at Hester and at himself so they see the truth in them. He ripped off the ministerial band from his chest, and the people stood shocked. The people are struck with awe and sympathy. The doctor came over the minister, awestruck because he will lose him and his revenge. Dimmesdale asks Pearl for a kiss and she finally places one on his lips. Hester kneels over him and asks him if they will not see each other again, and spend eternity together. The reverend tells her that their sin was too large, and that is all she should be concerned. He shouted farewell to the audience and breathed his last breath.

Chapter 24: People swore after that day that when they saw the minister rip off the band on his breast that a scarlet ‘A’ resided there. Many thought that he made the revelation in the dying hour so everyone would know that one who appeared so pure, was as much a sinner as the rest of them. Roger Chillingworth died within the year and bequeathed large amounts of property both in New England and in England to Pearl. This made Pearl the richest heiress in the New World. Soon after his death, Hester Prynne and her little Pearl disappeared. Years later Hester came back alone to live with her sin in her cottage. Pearl was thought to be happily married elsewhere and mindful of her mother. After her return, many people of the town went to Hester for advice and help when they were in need. After many years she died, and was placed next to the saintly minister. They shared a tombstone and they would be together forever.

Character Prof i les

Hester Prynne: A beautiful puritan woman full of strong passions, Hester Prynne is the main character in the story. Employed as the village seamstress, she is strong and caring, helping anyone she can when he or she are in need. With a penitent heart, Hester travels through the story becoming only a shadow of her former passionate loving self. Other than the scarlet letter, she was a very moral woman whose only joy in life was her daughter Pearl. Roger Chillingsworth: The missing husband of Hester Prynne. He shows up the day that Hester is put on public display and does not show himself as her husband. A scholar and a man of medicine, his soul purpose in his life becomes revenge against the man who helped his wife sin. By the end of the story, he is shown to be an evil character.

Pearl: Looked on as the devil’s child, Pearl is the only one in the story that is purely innocent. She is passionate, intelligent, and energetic. Pearl is in touch with nature and with her mother’s feelings. Ever since she was born, Pearl had a fascination with the scarlet letter that is a constant reminder for Hester of her sin.

Arthur Dimmesdale: The minister of the town that the people adore, Arthur was the secret lover of Hester Prynne. He was a sickly man who took his sin very seriously. He spent the seven years since his indiscretion with Mistress Prynne trying to repent. He wore down his body with his penitence and his sin ate away his soul. In the end, he frees himself from his guilt by admitting to everyone his sin.

Metaphor Analysis

The Rose Bush: A rose bush that grew outside the prison was a symbol of survival, that there is life after the prison where Hester spent he beginning of the story.

 The Scarlet Letter ‘A’: The letter that Hester was forced to wear upon her bosom, the scarlet letter was not only a symbol of her adulterous sin, but of the women herself. The letter masks her beauty and passion as the story goes until it is what she is known. 

The Black Man in the Woods: the peoples symbol for the devil. The woods in those times were a very scary place, and they thought that people that went into it came out evil and corrupted.

Theme Analysis

The Scarlet Letter is a story that illustrates intricate pieces of the Puritan lifestyle. Centered first on a sin committed by Hester Prynne and her secret lover before the story ever begins, the novel details how sin affects the lives of the people involved. For Hester, the sin forces her into isolation from society and even from herself. Her qualities that Hawthorne describes at the opening of the book, i.e. her beauty, womanly qualities, and passion are, after a time, eclipsed by the ‘A’ she is forced to wear. An example of this is her hair. Long hair is something in this time period that is a symbol of a woman. At the beginning of the story, Hawthorne tells of Hester’s long flowing hair. After she wears the scarlet letter for a time, he paints a picture of her with her hair out of site under a cap, and all the wanton womanliness gone from her. 

Yet, even with her true eclipsed behind the letter, of the three main characters affected, Hester has the easiest time because her sin is out in the open. More than a tale of sin, the Scarlet Letter is also an intense love story that shows itself in the forest scene between Hester and the minister Arthur Dimmesdale. With plans to run away with each, Arthur and Hester show that their love has surpassed distance and time away from each other. This love also explains why Hester would not reveal the identity of her fellow sinner when asked on the scaffolding. Roger Chillingworth is the most affected by the sin, though he was not around when the sin took place. Demented by his thoughts of revenge and hate, Hawthorne shows Mr. Chillingworth to be a devil or as a man with an evil nature. He himself commits one of the seven deadly sins with his wrath. 

By the end of the tale that surpasses seven years, Hester is respected and revered by the community as a doer of good works, and the minister is worshipped for his service in the church. Only Mr. Chillingworth is looked upon badly by the townspeople although no one knows why. Through it all, Hawthorne illustrates that even sin can produce purity, and that purity came in the form of the sprightly Pearl. Though she is isolated with her mother, Pearl finds her company and joy in the nature that surrounds her. She alone knows that her mother must keep the scarlet letter on her at all times, and that to take it off is wrong. 

Through the book the child is also constantly asking the minister to confess his sin to the people of the town inherently knowing that it will ease his pain. Hawthorne’s metaphor of the rose growing next to the prison is a good metaphor for Pearl’s life that began in that very place. The reader sees this connection when Pearl tells the minister that her mother plucked her from the rose bush outside of the prison. Finally, for all the characters, Hawthorne’s novel illustrates how one sin can escalate to encompass one’s self so that the true humans behind the sin are lost. This is what makes Hawthorne’s novel not only a story of love vs. hate, sin vs. purity, good vs. evil, but all of these combined to make a strikingly historical tragedy as well.

Top Ten Quotes

1) «It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.» 2) « ‘People say,’ said another, ‘that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to his heart that such a scandal has come upon his congregation.’» 3) « ‘If thou feelest to be for thy soul’s peace, and that they earthly punishment will there by be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer.’» 4) «But she named the infant ‘Pearl,’ as being of great price- purchased with all she had- her mother’s only pleasure.» 5) «After putting her fingers in her mouth, with many ungrateful refusals to answer Mr. Wilson’s question, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison door» 6) « ‘He hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious Mr. Dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart!’» 7) «Such helpfulness was found in her- so much power to do and power to sympathize- that many people refused to interpret the scarlet ‘A’ by it’s original signification. They said that it meant ‘Able’; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a women’s strength.» 8) «‘That old man!- the physician!- the one whom they call Roger Chillingworth!-he was my husband!’» 9) «Pacify her, if thou lovest me!» 10) « ‘Hester Prynne’ cried he, with a piercing earnestness ‘in the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what- for my own heavy sin and miserable agony- I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me!»

 

Slaughterhouse Five

 

Chapter One. Summary:

The narrator assures us that the book we are about to read is true, more or less. The parts dealing with World War II are most faithful to actual events. Twenty-three years have passed since the end of the war, and for much of that time the narrator has been trying to write about the bombing of Dresden. He was never able to bring make the project work. When he thinks about Dresden's place in his memory, he always recalls two things: an obscene limerick about a man whose penis has let him down, and "My Name is Yon Yonson," a song which has no ending.

Late some nights, the narrator gets drunk and begins to track down old friends with the telephone. Some years ago he tracked down Bernard O'Hare, an old war buddy of his, using Bell Atlantic phone operators. When he tracked his old friend down, he asked if Bernard would help him remember things about the war. Bernard seemed unenthusiastic. When the narrator suggests the execution of Edgar Derby, an American who stole a teapot from the ruins, as the climax of the novel, Bernard still seems unenthusiastic.

The best outline the narrator ever made for his Dresden book was on a roll of toilet paper, using crayon. Colors represented different people, and the lines crisscrossed when people met, and ended when they died. The outline ended with the exchange of prisoners who had been liberated by Americans and Russians.

After the war, the narrator went home, married, and had kids, all of whom are grown now. He studied anthropology at the University of Chicago, and in anthropology he learned that "there was absolutely no difference between anybody," and that "nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting." He's worked various jobs, and tried to keep up work on his Dresden novel all this time.

He actually did go to see Bernard O'Hare just a few weeks after finding him over the telephone. He brought his young daughters, who were sent upstairs to play with O'Hare's kids. The men could not think of any particularly good memories or stories, and the narrator noticed that Mary, Bernard's wife (to whom Slaughterhouse Five is dedicated), seemed very angry about something. Finally, she confronted him: the narrator and Bernard were just babies when they fought. Mary was angry because if the narrator wrote a book, he would make himself and Bernard tough men, glorifying war and turning scared babies into heroes. The movie adaptation would then star "Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men" (14). Wars would look good, and we would be sure to have more of them. The narrator promised that it won't be that kind of book, and that he'd call it The Children's Crusade. He and Mary were friends starting at that moment. That night, he and Bernard looked through Bernard's library for information on the real Children's Crusade, a war slightly more sordid than the other crusades. The scheme was cooked up by two monks who planned to raise an army of European children and then sell them into slavery in North Africa. Sleepless later that night, the narrator looked at a history of Dresden published in 1908. The book described a Prussian siege of the city in the eighteenth century.

In 1967, the narrator and O'Hare returned to Dresden. On the flight over, the narrator got stuck in Boston due to delays. In a hotel in Boston, he felt that someone had played with all the clocks. With every twitch of a clock, it seemed that years passed. That night, he read a book by Roethke and another book by Erika Ostrovsky. The Ostrovsky book, Cйline and His Vision, is a story of a French soldier whose skull gets cracked during World War I. He hears noises and suffers from insomnia forever afterward, and at night he writes grotesque, macabre novels. Cйline sees death and the passage of time as the same process.

The narrator also read about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the hotel room's Gideon Bible. He calls attention to the moment when Lot's wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. He loves her for that act, because it was such a human thing to do.

Now, he presents us with his war book. He will strive to look back no more. This book, he says, is a failure. It was bound to be a failure because it was written by a pillar of salt. He gives us the first line and the last, and the central story of the novel is ready to begin.

Chapter Two. Summary:

"Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." He wanders from moment to moment in his life, experiencing chronologically disparate events right after one another. He sees his birth and death and everything in between, all out of order, with no pattern to predict what will come next. Or so he believes.

Billy was born in 1922 in Ilium, New York. Tall, thin, and embarrassingly weak, he made an unlikely soldier. He was going to night school in optometry when he got drafted to fight in World War II. His father died in a hunting accident before Billy left for Europe. The Germans captured Billy during the Battle of the Bulge. In 1945 he returned to the States, finished optometry school, and married the daughter of the school's owner. During the engagement, he was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. After his release, he finished school, married the girl, got his own practice with help from his father-in-law, became quite rich, and had two kids. In 1968 he was the sole survivor of a plane crash. While he was in the hospital, his wife died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He returned home for rest, but without warning one day he went to New York and claimed on the radio that he had been kidnapped by aliens called Trafalmadorians. Billy's daughter, Barbara, retrieved him from New York. A month later, Billy wrote a letter to Ilium's newspaper describing the aliens. The Trafalmadorians are shaped like two-foot tall toilet plungers, suction cup down.

We now see Billy working on a second letter describing the Trafalmadorian conception of time. All time happens simultaneously, so a man who dies is actually still alive, since all moments exist at all times. Billy works on his letter, oblivious to the increasingly frantic shouts of his daughter, who has stopped by to check on him. The burden of caring for Billy has made Barbara difficult and unforgiving.

We move to the first time Billy gets unstuck in time. Billy receives minimal training as a chaplain's assistant before being shipped to Europe. He arrives in September of 1944, right in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge. He never meets his chaplain or gets a proper helmet or boots. Although he survives the onslaught, he wanders behind German lines, tagging along with two scouts and an anti-tank gunner named Roland Weary. Weary repeatedly saves Billy's life, mostly by not allowing him to lie down in the snow and die. Although the scouts are experienced, Weary is as new to the war as Billy is; he just fancies himself as having more of a taste for it. By firing the anti-tank gun incorrectly, his gun crew put scorch marks into the ground. Because of those marks, the position of the gun crew was revealed to a Tiger tank that fired back. Everyone but Weary was killed. He is stupid, fat, cruel, and violent. Back in Pittsburgh he was friendless, and constantly getting ditched. His father collects torture devices. He carries a cruel trench knife, various pieces of equipment that have been issued to him, and a pornographic photo of a woman with a horse. He plagues Billy with macho, aggressive conversation. In his own mind, Weary narrates the war stories he will one day tell. Although he is almost as clumsy and slow as Billy, he imagines himself and the two scouts as fast friends. In his head he dubs them and himself the Three Musketeers, and tells himself the story of how the Three Musketeers saved the life of a dumb, incompetent college kid.

Straggling behind the others, Billy becomes unstuck in time. He goes back to the red light of pre-birth and then forward again to a day in his childhood with his father at the YMCA. His father tries to teach him how to swim by the sink-or-swim method. Billy sinks, and someone has to rescue him. He jumps forward to 1965, when he is a middle-aged man visiting his mother in a nursing home. Then he jumps to 1958, and Billy is attending his son's Little League banquet. Leap to 1961: Billy is at a party, totally drunk and cheating on his wife for the first and only time. Then, he is back in 1944, being shaken awake by Weary. Weary and Billy catch up to the scouts. Dogs are barking in the distance, and the Germans are searching for them. Billy is in bad shape: he looks like hell, can barely walk, and is having vivid (but pleasant) hallucinations. Weary tries to be chummy with his supposed buddies, the scouts, grouping himself with them as "the Three Musketeers." The scouts coldly tell him that he and Billy are on their own.

Billy goes to 1957, when he gives a speech as the newly elected president of the Lion's Club. Although he has a momentary bout of stage fright, his speech is beautiful. He has taken a public speaking course.

He leaps back to 1944. Ditched again, Weary starts to beat Billy up, furious that this weak college kid has cost him his membership in "the Three Musketeers." He cruelly beats Billy, who is in such a state that he can only laugh. Suddenly, Weary realizes that they are being watched by five German soldiers and a police dog. They have been captured.

Chapter Three. Summary:

The troops who capture Billy and Weary are irregulars, newly enlisted men using the equipment of newly dead soldiers. Their commander is a tough German corporal, whose beautiful boots are a trophy from a battle long ago. Once, while waxing the boots, he told a soldier that if you stared into their shine you could see Adam and Eve. Though Billy has never heard the corporal's claim, looking into the boots now he sees Adam and Eve and loves them for their innocence, vulnerability, and beauty. A blond fifteen-year-old boy helps Billy to his feet; he looks as beautiful and innocent as Eve. In the distance, shots sound out as the two scouts are killed. Waiting in ambush, they were found and shot in the backs of their heads.

The Germans take Weary's things, including the pornographic picture, which the two old men grin about, and Weary's boots. The fifteen-year old gets Weary's boots, and Weary gets the boy's clogs. Weary and Billy are made to march a long distance to a cottage where American POWs are being detained. The soldiers there say nothing. Billy falls asleep, his head on the shoulder of a Jewish chaplain.

Billy leaps in time to 1967, although it takes him a while to figure out the date. He is giving an eye exam in his office in Ilium. His car, visible outside his window, has conservative stickers on the bumper; the stickers were gifts from his father-in-law.

He leaps back to the war. A German is kicking his feet, telling him to wake up. The Americans are assembled outside for photographs. The photographer takes pictures of Billy's and Weary's feet as evidence of how poorly equipped the American troops are. They stage photos of Billy being captured. Billy then returns to 1967, driving to the Lion's club. He drives through a black ghetto, an area recovering from recent riots and fires. He largely ignores what he sees there. At the Lion's club, a marine major talks about the need to continue the fight in Vietnam. He advocates bombing North Vietnam into the Stone Age, if necessary, and Billy does not think of the horror of bombing, which he has witnessed himself. He is simply having lunch. The narrator mentions that he has a prayer on the wall of his office: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference."

The narrator tells us that Billy cannot change past, present, or future. After lunch, Billy goes home. He is a wealthy man now, with a son in the Green Berets and a daughter about to get married; he also is seized occasionally by sudden and inexplicable bouts of weeping. During one of these spells, he closes his eyes and finds himself back in World War II. He is marching with an ever-growing line of Americans making their way through Luxembourg. They cross into Germany, being filmed by the Germans who want a record of their great victory. Weary's feet are sore and bloody from marching on the German boy's clogs. The Americans are sorted by rank, and a colonel tries to talk with Billy. The colonel is dying; he tries to be chummy with Billy. He has always wanted to be called "Wild Bob" by his men. He dreams of having a reunion of his men in his hometown of Cody, Wyoming. He invites Billy and the other men to come. Vonnegut mentions that he and Bernard O'Hare were there when the colonel gave his invitation. All of the POWs are put into train cars. The train does not leave for two days; during that time Wild Bob dies. The boxcars are so crowded that to sleep the men have to take turns lying down. When the train finally begins its trek deeper into Germany, Billy jumps through time again. It is 1967, and he is about to be kidnapped for the first time by the Trafalmadorians.

Chapter Four. Summary:

In 1967, on his daughter's wedding night, Billy cannot sleep. Because he is unstuck in time, he knows that he will soon be kidnapped by a Trafalmadorian flying saucer. He kills time unproductively in the meantime. He watches a war movie, and because he is unstuck in time the movie goes forward and then backward. He goes out to meet the ship, and he is taken as planned. As the ship shoots out into space, Billy is jarred back to 1944. In the boxcar, none of the men want Billy to sleep next to them because he yells and thrashes in his sleep. He is forced to sleep while standing. In another car, Weary dies of gangrene in his feet. As he slowly dies over the course of days, he tells people again and again about the Three Musketeers. He also asks that someone get revenge for him on the man who caused his death. He blames Billy Pilgrim, of course.

The train finally arrives at a camp, and Billy and the other men are pushed and prodded along. The camp is full of dying Russian POWs. At points, Vonnegut likens the Russians' faces to radium dials. The Americans are all given coats; Billy's is too small. They go into a delousing station, where all of the men strip naked. Billy has one of the worst bodies there; he is skinny and weak, and a German soldier comments on that fact. We are introduced briefly to Edgar Derby and Paul Lazarro. Derby is the oldest POW there, a man who pulled strings to get into the army. He is a high school teacher from Indianapolis, and he is physically sturdy despite his forty-four years of age. He will be shot after the Dresden bombing for trying to steal a teapot.

 Paul Lazarro is a car thief from Illinois. His body is even weaker and less healthy than Billy's. He was in Roland Weary's boxcar, and he vowed solemnly to Weary that he would find and kill Billy Pilgrim. When the scalding water turns on, Billy leaps back to his infancy. His mother has just finished giving him a bath. He then leaps forward to a Sunday game of golf, played with three other optometrists. Then, he leaps in time to the space ship, on his first trip to Trafalmadore. He talks with one of his captors about time, and he says that the Trafalmadorians sound like they do not believe in free will. The alien replies that in all of the inhabited planets of the galaxy, Earth is the only one whose people believe in the concept of free will.

Chapter Five. Summary:

En route to Trafalmadore, Billy asks for something to read. The only human novel is Valley of the Dolls, and when Billy asks for a Trafalmadorian novel, he learns that the aliens' novels are slim, sleek volumes. Because they have a different concept of time, Trafalmadorians have novels arranged by juxtaposition of marvelous moments. The books have no cause or effect or chronology; their beauty is in the arrangement of events meant to be read simultaneously. Billy jumps in time to a visit to the Grand Canyon taken when he was twelve years old. He is terrified of the canyon. His mother touches him and he wets his pants. He jumps forward in time just ten days, to later in the same vacation. He is visiting Carlsbad Caverns. The ranger turns the lights off, so that the tourists can experience total darkness. But Billy sees a light nearby: the radium dial of his father's watch.

Billy jumps back to the war. The Germans think Billy is one of the funniest creatures they've seen in all of the war. His coat is preposterously small, and on his already awkward body it looks ridiculous. The Americans give their names and serial numbers so that they can be reported to the Red Cross, and then they are marched to sheds occupied by middle-aged British POWs. The British welcome them with singing. These British POWs are officers, some of the first Brits taken prisoner in the war. They have been prisoners for four years. Due to a clerical error early in the war, the Red Cross shipped them an incredible surplus of food, which they have hoarded cleverly. Consequently, they are some of the best-fed people in Europe. Their German captors adore them.

To prepare for their American guests, the Brits have cleaned and set out party favors. Candles and soap, supplied by the Germans, are plentiful: the British do not know that these items are made from the bodies of Holocaust victims. They have prepared a huge dinner and a dramatic adaptation of Cinderella. Billy is so unhinged that his laughter at the performance becomes hysterical shrieking, and he is taken to the hospital and doped up on morphine. Edgar Derby watches over him, reading The Red Badge of Courage. He leaps in time to the mental ward where he recovered in 1948.

In the mental ward, Billy's bed is next to the bed of Elliot Rosewater. Like Billy, he has little love for life, in part because of things he saw and did in the war. He is the man who introduces Billy to the science fiction of Kilgore Trout. Billy is enduring one of his mother's dreaded visits. She is a simple, religious woman. She makes Billy feel worse just by being there. Billy leaps back in time to the POW camp. A British colonel talks to Derby; after the newly arrived Americans shaved, the British were shocked by how young they all were. Derby tells of how he was captured: the Americans were pushed back into a forest, and the Germans rained shells on them until they surrendered.

Billy leaps back to the hospital. He is being visited by his ugly, overweight fiancйe Valencia. He knew he was going crazy when he proposed to her. He does not want to marry her. She is visiting now, eating a Three Musketeers bar and wearing a diamond engagement ring that Billy found while in Germany. Elliot tells her about The Gospel from Outer Space, a Kilgore Trout book.

 Valencia tries to talk to Billy about plans for their wedding and marriage, but he is not too involved. He leaps forward in time to the zoo on Trafalmadore, where he was on display when he was forty-four years old. The habitat is furnished with Sears and Roebuck furniture. He is naked. He answers questions posed by the Trafalmadorian tourists. He learns that there are five sexes among the Trafalmadorians, but the sex difference is only visible in the fourth dimension. On earth there are actually seven sexes, all necessary to the production of children; earthlings just do not notice the sex difference between themselves because many of the sex acts occur in the fourth dimension. These ideas baffle Billy, and they in turn are baffled by his linear concept of time. Billy expects the Trafalmadorians to be concerned about or horrified by the wars on earth. He worries that earthlings will eventually threaten all the other races in the galaxy, causing the eventual destruction of the universe. The Trafalmadorians put their hands over their eyes, which lets Billy know that he is being stupid.

The Trafalmadorians already know how the universe will end: during experiments with a new fuel, one of their test pilots pushes a button and the entire universe will disappear. They cannot prevent it. It has always happened that way. Billy correctly concludes that trying to prevent wars on Earth is futile. The Trafalmadorians also have wars, but they choose to ignore them. They spend their time looking at the pleasant moments rather than the unpleasant ones; they suggest that humans learn to do the same.

Billy leaps back in time to his wedding night. It is six months after his release from the mental ward. The narrator reminds us that Valencia and her father are very rich, and Billy will benefit greatly from his marriage to her. After they have sex, Valencia tries to ask Billy questions about the war. She wants a heroic war story, but Billy does not really respond to her. He has a crazy thought about the war, which Vonnegut says would make a good epitaph for Billy, and for the author, too: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt." He jumps in time to that night in the prison camp. Edgar Derby has fallen asleep. Billy, doped up still from the morphine, wanders out of the hospital shed. He snags himself on a barbed wire fence, and cannot extract himself until a Russian helps him.

Billy never really says a word to the Russian. He wanders to the latrine, where the Americans are sick from the feasting. A long period without food followed by a feast almost always results in violent sickness. Among the sick Americans is a soldier complaining that he has shit his brains out. It is Vonnegut. Billy leaves, passing by three Englishmen who watch the Americans' sickness with disgust. Billy jumps in time again, back to his wedding night. He and his wife are cozy in bed. He jumps in time again, to 1944. It is before he left for Europe; he is riding the train from South Carolina, where he was receiving his training, all the way back to Ilium for his father's funeral.

We return to Billy's morphine night in the POW camp. Paul Lazarro is carried into the hospital; while attempting to steal cigarettes from a sleeping British officer, he was beaten up. The officer is the one carrying him. Seeing now how puny Lazarro is, the officer feels guilty for hitting him so hard. But he is disgusted by the American POWs. A German soldier who adores the British officers comes in and apologizes for the inconvenience of hosting the Americans. He assures the Brits in the room that the Americans will soon be shipped off for forced labor in Dresden. The German officer reads propaganda materials written by Howard Campbell, Jr., a captured American who is now a Nazi. Campbell condemns the self-loathing of the American poor, the inequalities of America's economic system, and the miserable behavior of American POWs. Billy falls asleep and wakes up in 1968, where his daughter Barbara is scolding him. Barbara notices the house is icy cold and goes to call the oil-burner man.

Billy leaps in time to the Trafalmadorian zoo, where Montana Wildhack, a motion picture star, has been brought in to mate with him. Initially unconscious, she wakes to find naked Billy and thousands of Trafalmadorians outside their habitat. They're clapping. She screams. Eventually, though, she comes to love and trust Billy. After a week they're sleeping together. He travels in time back to his bed in 1968. The oil-burner man has fixed the problem with the heater. Billy has just had a wet dream about Montana Wildhack. The next day, he returns to work. His assistants are surprised to see him, because they thought that he would never practice again. He has the first patient sent in, a boy whose father died in Vietnam. Billy tries to comfort the boy by telling him about the Trafalmadorian concept of time. The boy's mother informs the receptionist that Billy is going crazy. Barbara comes to take him home, sick with worry about what how to deal with him.

Chapter Six. Summary:

Billy wakes after his morphine night in POW camp irresistibly drawn to two tiny treasures. They draw him like magnets; they are hidden in the lining of his coat. It will be revealed later on exactly what they are. He goes back to sleep, and wakes up to the sounds of the British building a new latrine. They have abandoned their old latrine and their meeting hall to the Americans. The man who beat up Lazarro stops by to make sure he is all right, and Lazarro promises that he is going to have the man killed after the war. After the amused Brit leaves, Lazarro tells Derby and Billy that revenge is life's sweetest pleasure. He once brutally tortured a dog that bit him. He is going to have all of his enemies killed after the war. He tells Billy that Weary was his buddy, and he is going to avenge him by having Billy shot after the war. Because of his time hopping, Billy knows that this is true. He will be shot in 1976. At that time, the United States has split into twenty tiny nations. Billy will be lecturing in Chicago on the Trafalmadorian concept of time and the fourth dimension. He tells the spectators that he is about to die, and urges them to accept it. After the lecture, he is shot in the head by a high-powered laser gun.

Back in the POW camp, Billy, Derby, and Lazarro go the theater to elect a leader. On the way over, they see a Brit drawing a line in the dirt to separate the American and British sections of the compound. In the theater, Americans are sleeping anywhere that they can. A Brit lectures them on hygiene, and Edgar Derby is elected leader. Only two or three men actually have the energy to vote. Billy dresses himself in a piece of azure curtain and Cinderella's boots. The Americans ride the train to Dresden. Dresden is a beautiful city, appearing on the horizon like something out of a fairy tale. They are met by eight German irregulars, boys and old men who will be in charge of them for the rest of the war. They march through town towards their new home. The people of Dresden watch them, and most of them are amused by Billy's outlandish costume. One surgeon is not. He scolds Billy about dignity and representing his country and war not being a joke, but Billy is honestly perplexed by the man's anger. He shows the man his two treasures from the lining of his coat: a two-carat diamond and some false teeth. The Americans are brought to their new home, a converted building originally for the slaughter of pigs. The building has a large 5 on it. The POWs are taught the German name for their new home, in case they get lost in the city. In English, it is called Slaughterhouse Five.

Chapter Seven. Summary:

Billy is on a plane next to his father-in-law. Billy and a number of optometrists have chartered a plane to go to a convention in Montreal. There's a barbershop quartet on board. Billy's father-in-law loves it when they sing songs mocking the Polish. Vonnegut mentions that in Germany Billy saw a Pole getting executed for having sex with a German girl. Billy leaps in time to his wandering behind the German lines with the two scouts and Roland Weary. He leaps in time again to the plane crash. Everyone dies but him. The plane has crashed in Vermont, and Billy is found by Austrian ski instructors. When he hears them speaking German, he thinks he's back in the war. He is unconscious for days, and during that time he dreams about the days right before the bombing.

He remembers a boy named Werner Gluck, one of the guards. He was good-natured, as awkward and puny as Billy. One day, Gluck and Billy and Derby were looking for the kitchen. Derby and Billy were pulling a two-wheeled cart; it was their duty to bring dinner back for the boys. Gluck pulled a door open, thinking the kitchen might be there, and instead revealed naked teenage girls showering, refugees from another city that was bombed. The women scream and Gluck shuts the door. When they finally find the kitchen, an old cook talks with the trio critically and proclaims that all the real soldiers are dead. Billy also remembers working in the malt syrup factory in Dresden. The syrup is for pregnant women, and it is fortified with vitamins. The POWs do everything they can to sneak spoonfuls of it. Billy sneaks a spoonful to Edgar Derby, who is outside. He bursts into tears after he tastes it.

Chapter Eight. Summary:

Howard Campbell, Jr., the American-turned-Nazi propagandist, visits the captives of Slaughterhouse Five. He wears an elaborate costume of his own design, a cross between cowboy outfit and a Nazi uniform. The POWs are tired and unhealthy, undernourished and overworked. Campbell offers them good eating if they join his Free American Corps. The Corps is Campbell's idea. Composed of Americans fighting for the Germans, they will be sent to fight on the Russian front. After the war, they will be repatriated through Switzerland. Campbell reasons that the Americans will have to fight the Soviet Union sooner or later, and they might as well get it out of the way. Edgar Derby rises for his finest moment. He denounces Campbell soundly, praises American forms of government, and speaks of the brotherhood between Russians and Americans. Air raid sirens sound, and everyone takes cover in a meat locker. The firebombing will not occur until tomorrow night; these sirens are only a false alarm. Billy dozes, and then leaps in time to an argument with his daughter Barbara. She is worrying about what should be done about Billy. She tells him that she feels like she could kill Kilgore Trout.

We move to Billy's first meeting with Trout, which happened in 1964. He is out driving when he recognizes Trout from the jackets of his books. Trout's books have never made money, so he works as a newspaper circulation man, bullying and terrorizing newspaper delivery boys. One of Trout's boys quits, and Billy offers to help Trout deliver the papers on the boy's route. He gives Trout a ride. Trout is overwhelmed by meeting an avid fan. He has only received one letter in the course of his career, and the letter was crazed. It was written by none other than Billy's friend from the mental ward, Elliot Rosewater. Billy invites Kilgore Trout to his anniversary party.

At the party, Trout is obnoxious, but the optometrists and their spouses are still enchanted by having an actual writer among them. A barbershop quartet sings "That Old Gang of Mine," and Billy is visibly disturbed. After giving Valencia her gift, he flees upstairs. Lying in bed, Billy remembers the bombing of Dresden.

We see the events as Billy remembers them. He and the other POWs, along with four of their guards, spend the night in the meat locker. The girls from the shower were being killed in a shallower shelter nearby. The POWs emerge at noon the next day into what looks like the surface of the moon. The guards gape at the destruction. They look like a silent film of a barbershop quartet.

We move to the Trafalmadorian Zoo. Montana Wildhack asked Billy to tell her a story. He tells her about the burnt logs, actually corpses. He tells her about the great monuments and buildings of the city turned into a flat, lunar surface.

We move to Dresden. Without food or water, the POWs have to march to find some if they are to survive. They make their way across the treacherous landscape, much of it still hot, bits of crumbling. They are attacked by American fighter planes. The end up in the suburbs, at an inn that has prepared to receive any survivors. The innkeeper lets the Americans sleep in the stable. He provides them with food and drink, and goes out to bid them goodnight as they go to bed.

Chapter Nine. Summary:

When Billy is in the hospital in Vermont, Valencia goes crazy with grief. Driving to the hospital, she gets in a terrible accident. She gears up her car and continues driving to the hospital, determined to get there even though she leaves her exhaust system behind. She pulls into the hospital driveway and falls unconscious from carbon monoxide poisoning. An hour later, she is dead.

Billy is oblivious, unconscious in his bed, dreaming and time traveling. In the bed next to him is Bertram Copeland Ruumford, an arrogant retired Brigadier General in the Air Force Reserve. He is a seventy-year-old Harvard professor and the official historian of the Air Force, and he is in superb physical condition. He has a twenty-three year-old high school dropout with an IQ of 103. He is an arrogant jingoist. Currently he is working on a history of the Air Corp in World War II. He has to write a section on the success of the Dresden bombing. Ruumfoord's wife Lily is scared of Billy, who mumbles deliriously. Ruumfoord is disgusted by him, because all he does in his sleep in quit or surrender.

Barbara comes to visit Billy. She is in a horrible state, drugged up so she can function after the recent tragedies. Billy cannot hear her. He is remembering an eye exam he gave to a retarded boy a decade ago. Then he leaps in time when he was sixteen years old. In the waiting room of a doctor's office, he sees an old man troubled by horrible gas. Billy opens his eyes and he is back in the hospital in Vermont. His son Robert, a decorated Green Beret, is there. Billy closes his eyes again.

He misses Valencia's funeral because he is till too sick. People assume that he is a vegetable, but actually he is thinking actively about Trafalmadorians and the lectures he will deliver about time and the permanence of moments. Overhearing Ruumford talk about Dresden, Billy finally speaks up and tells Ruumford that he was at Dresden. Ruumford ignores him, trying to convince himself and the doctors that Billy has Echonalia, a condition where the sufferer simply repeats what he hears.

Billy leaps in time to May of 1945, two days after the end of the war in Europe. In a coffin-shaped green wagon, Billy and five other Americans ride with loot from the suburbs of Dresden. They found the wagon, attached to two horses, and have been using it to carry things that they have taken. The homes have been abandoned because the Russians are coming, and the Americans have been looting. When they go to the slaughterhouse and the other five Americans loot among the ruins, Billy naps in the wagon. He has a cavalry pistol and a Luftwaffe ceremonial saber. He wakes; two Germans, a husband-and-wife pair of obstetricians, are angry about how the Americans have treated the horses. The horses' hooves are shattered, their mouths are bleeding from the bits, and they are extremely thirsty. Billy goes around to look at the horses, and he bursts into tears. It is the only time he cries in the whole war. Vonnegut reminds the reader of the epigraph at the start of the book, an excerpt from a Christmas carol that describes the baby Jesus as not crying. Billy cries very little.

He leaps in time back to the hospital in Vermont, where Ruumford is finally questioning Billy about Dresden. Barbara takes Billy home later that day. Billy is watched by a nurse; he is supposed to be under observation, but he escapes to New York City and gets a hotel room. He plans to tell the world about the Trafalmadorians and their concept of time. The next day, Billy goes into a bookstore that sells pornography, peep shows, and Kilgore Trout novels. Billy is only interested in Kilgore Trout novels. In one of the pornographic magazines, there is an article about the disappearance of porn star Montana Wildhack. Later, Billy sneaks onto a radio talk show by posing as a literary critic. The critics take turns discussing the novel, but when Billy gets his turn he talks about Trafalmadore. At the next commercial break, he is made to leave. When he goes back to his hotel room and lies down, he travels back in time to Trafalmadore. Montana is nursing their child. She wears a locket with a picture of her mother and the same prayer that Billy had on his office wall in Ilium.

Chapter Ten. Summary:

Vonnegut tells us that Robert Kennedy died last night. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated a month ago. Body counts are reported every night on the news as signs that the war in Vietnam is being won. Vonnegut's father died years ago of natural causes. He left Billy all of his guns, which rust. Billy claims that on Trafalmadore the aliens are more interested in Darwin than Jesus. Darwin, says Vonnegut, taught that death was the means to progress. Vonnegut recalls the pleasant trip he made to Dresden with his old war buddy, O'Hare. They were looking up facts about Dresden in a little book when O'Hare came across a passage on the exploding world population. By 2000, the book predicts, the world will have a population of 7 billion people. Vonnegut says that he supposes they will all want dignity.

Billy Pilgrim travels back in time to 1945, two days after the bombing of Dresden. German authorities find the POWs in the innkeeper's stable. Along with other POWs, they are brought back to Dresden to dig for bodies. Bodies are trapped in protected pockets under the rubble, and the POWs are put to work bringing them up. But after one of the workers is lowered into a pocket and dies of the dry heaves, the Germans settle on incinerating the bodies instead of retrieving them. During this time, Edgar Derby is caught with a teapot he took from the ruins. He is tried and executed by a firing squad.

Then the POWs were returned to the stable. The German soldiers went off to fight the Soviets. Spring comes, and one day in May the war is over. Billy and the other men go outside into the abandoned suburbs. They find a horse-drawn wagon, the wagon green and shaped like a coffin. The birds sing, "Po-tee-weet?"

 

The Sound and the Fury

 

Summary of April Seventh, 1928:

This section of the book is commonly referred to as "Benjy's section" because it is narrated by the retarded youngest son of the Compson family, Benjamin Compson. At this point in the story, Benjy is 33 years old - in fact, today is his birthday - but the story skips back and forth in time as various events trigger memories. When the reader first plunges into this narrative, the jumps in time are difficult to navigate or understand, although many scenes are marked by recurring images, sounds, or words. In addition, a sort of chronology can be established depending on who is Benjy's caretaker: first Versh when Benjy is a child, then T. P. when he is an adolescent, then Luster when he is an adult. One other fact that may confuse first-time readers is the repetition of names. There are, for example, two Jasons (father and son), two Quentins (Benjy's brother and Caddy's daughter), and two Mauries (Benjy himself before 1900 and Benjy's uncle). Benjy recalls three important events: the evening of his grandmother "Damuddy's" death in 1898, his name change in 1900, and Caddy's sexual promiscuity and wedding in 1910, although these events are punctuated by other memories, including the delivery of a letter to his uncle's mistress in 1902 or 1903, Caddy's wearing perfume in 1906, a sequence of events at the gate of the house in 1910 and 1911 that culminates in his castration, Quentin's death in 1910, his father's death and funeral in 1912, and Roskus's death some time after this. I will summarize each event briefly.

The events of the present day (4/7/28) center around Luster's search for a quarter he has lost somewhere on the property. He received this quarter from his grandmother Dilsey in order to go to the circus that evening. Luster takes Benjy with him as he searches by the golf course that used to be the Compson's pasture, by the carriage house, down by the branch of the Yoknapatawpha River, and finally near Benjy's "graveyard" of jimson flowers in a bottle.

As the story opens, Benjy and Luster are by the golf course, where the golfers' cries of "caddie" cause Benjy to "beller" because he mistakes their cries for his missing sister Caddy's name. In the branch, Luster finds a golfer's ball, which he later tries to sell to the golfers; they accuse him of stealing it and take it from him. Luster tries to steer Benjy away from the swing, where Miss Quentin and her "beau" (one of the musicians from the circus) are sitting, but is unsuccessful. Quentin is furious and runs into the house, while her friend jokes with Luster and asks him who visits Quentin. Luster replies that there are too many male visitors to distinguish.

Luster takes Benjy past the fence, where Benjy sees schoolgirls passing with their satchels. Benjy moans whenever Luster tries to break from the routine path Benjy is used to. At Benjy's "graveyard," Luster disturbs the arrangement of flowers in the blue bottle, causing Benjy to cry. At this Luster becomes frustrated and says "beller. You want something to beller about. All right, then. Caddy. . . . Caddy. Beller now. Caddy" (55). Benjy's crying summons Dilsey, Luster's grandmother, who scolds him for making Benjy cry and for disturbing Quentin. They go in the kitchen, where Dilsey opens the oven door so Benjy can watch the fire. Dilsey has bought Benjy a birthday cake, and Luster blows out the candles, making Benjy cry again. Luster teases him by closing the oven door so that the fire "goes away." Dilsey scolds Luster again. Benjy is burned when he tries to touch the fire. His cries disturb his mother, who comes to the kitchen and reprimands Dilsey. Dilsey gives him an old slipper to hold, an object that he loves.

Luster takes Benjy to the library, where his cries disturb Jason, who comes to the door and yells at Luster. Luster asks Jason for a quarter. At dinner, Jason interrogates Quentin about the man she was with that afternoon and threatens to send Benjy to an asylum in Jackson. Quentin threatens to run away, and she and Jason fight. She runs out of the room. Benjy goes to the library, where Luster finds him and shows him that Quentin has given him a quarter. Luster dresses Benjy for bed; when Benjy's pants are off he looks down and cries when he is reminded of his castration. Luster puts on his nightgown and the two of them watch as Quentin climbs out her window and down a tree. Luster puts Benjy to bed.

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