Moby Dick Lesson 17

How did Captain Ahab die?

A rope attached to a harpoon wrapped around his neck and he was pulled into the water

What happened after Captain Ahab climbed to the top of the mast to look for the white whale?

A sea hawk swooped down and took Ahab's hat

Identify the protagonist of the novel Moby Dick.

Ahab

Who was the first person to sight Moby Dick?

Ahab

Which of these words is a synonym for retribution as it is used in this reading passage? From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume.

Atonement

The confrontation between Captain Ahab and Moby Dick represents which element of the plot ?

Climax

Which of these words least describes the mood of this reading passage? As the unsetting polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew.

Consolable

Which of these whaling ships did the Pequod meet last?

Delight

This reading passage is an example of which literary term? It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson's chest in his sleep.Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them. Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom

Description

Which of these terms cannot be used to describe the mood of this reading passage? "I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before--and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted fare--fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul--when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts--away, whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow--wife? wife?--rather a widow with her husband alive! Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey--more a demon than a man!--aye, aye! what a forty years' fool--fool--old fool, has old Ahab been!"

Deviuos

Who became entangled in a line and was pulled underwater during the second day of the hunt?

Fedallah

What happened to the lone survivor of the Pequod's wrecked crew?

He was rescued by the crew of the Rachel

Who was the only survivor of the Pequod's crew?

Ishmael

Identify the antagonist of the novel Moby Dick.

Moby Dick

What happened on the first day the Pequod's crew went after the white whale?

Moby Dick destroyed Ahab's whaling boat

What is the main idea of this reading passage? A pale, death-glimmerlit up Fedallah's sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth.Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back; and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on thispole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons.

Premonition

Which of these words best summarizes the information in this passage? "...and then, the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey--more a demon than a man!--aye, aye! what a forty years' fool--fool--old fool, has old Ahab been!"

Psychosis

The death of Captain Ahab and the destruction of the Pequod represent which element of the plot?

Resolution

In an effort to be the first man to sight the white whale, who did Captain Ahab ask to help him climb to the top of one of the Pequod's masts?

Starbuck

On the first day of the hunt, who did Ahab ask to take command of the Pequod?

Starbuck

Who urged Ahab to abandon his quest for the white whale and return to Nantucket?

Starbuck

What is the theme of this reading passage? From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed.Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled.Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume."The ship! The hearse!--the second hearse!" cried Ahab from the boat; its wood could only be American!Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent."I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! Let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow, --death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole forgone life, and top this one piled comber of my death!"

Superstition and prophecies that foreshadow future events

When Moby Dick attacked the Pequod, snapping off Ahab's artificial leg, what did the carpenter make Ahab's replacement leg from?

The material from Ahab's wrecked boat