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Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 1: Loomings
Explanation and Analysis—Life as a Play:
The idea of life being a play forms an extended metaphor throughout Moby-Dick and reflects man’s inability to fight his own fate. This metaphor also asserts the power of art. Ishmael introduces the metaphor in the very first chapter:
Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies [...] yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.
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Chapter 32: Cetology
Explanation and Analysis—Whales as Folios:
In the chapter “Cetology,” Ishmael classifies whales through an extended metaphor that systematizes whales as different books and folios. Explaining the “grand divisions of the entire whale host,” Ishmael breaks the species down into three primary books, subdivisible into chapters, referred to as the “folio whale,” the “octavo whale,” and the “duodecimo whale.” Here, Ishmael borrows terms from printing, with folios, octavos, and duodecimos all types of book format, distinct by their variation in size.
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Chapter 37: Sunset
Explanation and Analysis—The Iron Way :
In his soliloquoy in Chapter 37, Ahab metaphorically suggests that his will is so focused and unchanging that it runs along "iron rails" like a train:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!
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Chapter 89: Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish
Explanation and Analysis—Fast-Fish, Loose-Fish:
In Moby-Dick, Melville uses the “formal whaling code” of "Fast-Fish" and "Loose-Fish" as a satirical metaphor for colonialism and slavery that aims to expose the absurdity of politics at the time. Ishmael explains that the whole whaling code can be boiled down to two principles, and he goes on to argue that in these two laws can “be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence” (that is, the fundamentals of the law). These laws are:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.
II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.
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Chapter 110: Queequeg in His Coffin
Explanation and Analysis—Queequeg as Riddle:
When describing Queequeg’s tattoos, Ishmael uses a metaphor that refers to Queequeg’s body as “living parchment” on which is written an unreadable riddle. When Queequeg is carving the coffin with copies of his tattoos, Ishmael explains how Queequeg got his tattoos:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last.
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Chapter 135: The Chase. – Third Day
Explanation and Analysis—Shroud of the Sea :
In the penultimate chapter, one of the closing images the reader is left with is the metaphor of the sea as a shroud. After the Pequod and its crew is sunk, Ishmael writes:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.
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