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Chapter 111
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Moby-Dick, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Limits of Knowledge
Fate and Free Will
Nature and Man
Race, Fellowship, and Enslavement
Madness
Religion
Summary
Analysis
This chapter takes the form of a very short tale regarding Perth, the ship’s blacksmith. Perth’s life has been mostly a story of “ruin,” as Ishmael puts it: Perth lost feeling in both feet owing to frostbite, during a snowstorm; and after marrying and having two children, his house was robbed, and Perth fell into a depression so deep he was unable to continue working as a smith in the house’s basement. His wife and two children each died from sadness and lack of material comfort, and Perth was forced to find a new life, and source of income, aboard whaling vessels: thus he is a member of the Pequod’s crew.
A short fugue chapter, in which, in this case, Ishmael relates the sad life of the ship’s blacksmith, called Perth. Ishmael inserts this story, perhaps, to show the many different routes a man might take to land on a whaling vessel. For some, the vessel presents an adventure and an opportunity. For others, the whaling ship is a last resort and a refuge—a place where, after life is ruined, one might still make a living and attempt to start anew.
Themes
Quiz
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