Moby-Dick Ch. 14: Nantucket

Summary

Ishmael and Queequeg arrive safely in Nantucket after a smooth trip on the Moss. Not much else happened on the way. Melville stops the story here to describe the island itself.

Nantucket sits far offshore, lonelier than a lighthouse on a rock. It is basically a small hill of sand. There is almost no grass or trees. People joke that you must import weeds, that wood is as precious as holy relics, and that one blade of grass counts as a field. Clams sometimes stick to their chairs because the sea surrounds everything.

An old legend says an eagle carried off a baby from the coast. The parents followed in canoes across the water. They found Nantucket and an empty box made of ivory with the child's bones inside.

Because they grew up on that sandy beach, Nantucketers learned to live from the sea. They started by catching crabs and clams in the sand. Then they used nets for fish. Then they built boats for cod. At last they sent whaling ships all over the world to hunt the biggest creature alive: the whale.

Melville says these islanders conquered the oceans like great kings. Merchant sailors only cross the sea like a road. Pirates rob other ships. But the Nantucketer lives on the ocean itself. The sea is his home and his farm. A great flood would not stop his work.

He sleeps on his ship far from land, rocked like a gull on the waves. Walruses and whales swim beneath him while he rests. When he finally comes ashore after years at sea, even this sandy island smells strange and new.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Reading Place as Destiny

Scarcity on land can turn an whole people toward one medium as home and livelihood. Nantucket is sand and legend before it is wealth; its whalemen live on the sea like farmers on a field.

Before you judge a industry's culture, look at what the ground forced them to harvest.

Coming Up in Chapter 15

The Moss anchors late; Ishmael and Queequeg go ashore hungry for supper and a bed. Peter Coffin sent them to Hosea Hussey's Try Pots, famous for chowder, but finding the place means navigating yellow warehouse, white church, and a gallows-shaped sign with two black pots.

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Original text

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Chapter 14

Nantucket

Nantucket. Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it—a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don’t grow…

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Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Map Place to Trade

Pick one town or region you know. List what the land or water offers and what main industry grew from it. Compare to Nantucket's path from sand to whale navy. Note one extravagance locals joke about that reveals scarcity.

Consider:

•What does Nantucket lack that Illinois has?
•How does legend reinforce economics?
•Who lives in the medium versus crossing it?

Journaling Prompt

Write about a place whose geography obviously shaped how people there make a living.

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Nantucket

Summary