Chapter 93 Summary

This chapter captures the transformative experience that Pip undergoes. Pip is assigned to be the oarsman in Stubb’s boat but is easily frightened. When in his nervousness he makes Stubb lose a whale, Stubb tries to teach him a lesson and abandons him in the water. When the cabin boy is brought back to the ship, he has been driven insane by the experience. However, his insanity is characterized by the gift of preternatural or Godly knowledge.

Chapter 94 Summary

Ishmael describes the process of squeezing the spermaceti, which remains in a liquid form. He sentimentally describes his physical contact with other sailors, whose hands he unintentionally touches in the vat of sperm. The blubber-room is described, where the blubber from the whale is cut and prepared for rendering. This is a dangerous room where sailors often lose their toes to the sharp spades used to cut the blubber.

Chapters 95–96 Summary

The six-foot penis of the whale is called a “cassock,” and Ishmael lists its utility. In the next chapter, Ishmael describes the try-works, which has devilish connotations, as it is grim and hellish and is tended by the pagan harpooners.

Chapters 97–98 Summary

From the darkness of the previous chapter, Ishmael takes us to the brightly-lit forecastle of the ship. He explains how a whaling ship is never short of oil, unlike merchant ships, as whalers have access to abundant oil. Next, he describes the process of how the whale oil is decanted. With it, Ishmael has described the complete process which starts with the killing of the whale to how the oil is processed and preserved. The ship is cleaned after the process till the next hunt is accomplished.

Chapter 99 Summary

During one of his regular walks on the quarter-deck, Ahab notes the gold coin that he has nailed to the mainmast, a reward for the crewman who first spots Moby Dick. Ishmael describes the coin and documents how Ahab, Starbuck, Stubb, Flask, the Manxman (a sailor off the coast of England), Queequeg, Fedallah, and Pip interpret the inscribed features on the coin, each revealing their inner self in the process.

Chapter 100 Summary

The Pequod meets a whaling vessel from London called the Samuel Enderby. This ship has recently encountered Moby Dick, which has led the captain, Boomer, to lose an arm. Ahab is excited to have information about the White Whale, and a gam is initiated when he leaves the ship for the first time. The two captains touch their false limbs for a toast. Boomer describes his encounter with Moby Dick but is not bitter about losing his arm. Though the ship met the whale again, Boomer chose not to hunt it. Ahab insists on more information about the whale and gets agitated upon which the game is concluded. Boomer wonders to Fedallah about Ahab’s sanity.

Chapter 101 Summary

Ishmael informs his reader that Samuel Enderby was a London merchant who headed the famous whaling house Enderby & Sons. He considers this family just as important as the royal Bourbons or the Tudors.

Chapters 93–101 Analysis

The chapters in this section present the reaction of characters when confronted with the trauma at sea. When Pip is abandoned, he confronts a fate that is even more cruel than death. His life is less significant than a dead whale, which highlights how Stubb can sacrifice his own man for his prize; in extension, this shows how Captain Ahab too can sacrifice his own crew for his single-minded pursuit. The insanity of Pip, which is inspired by the Shakespearean fool, will have a larger connotation in later chapters when he comes in contact with Ahab.

Captain Boomer, on the other hand, despite his gory encounter with the White Whale, has a cheerful disposition and a positive spin on things. His acceptance of his fate is in sharp contrast to the bitter Ahab who will not accept his reality and will seek vengeance lustily. A man is considered wiser when he knows he is defeated, and when Boomer accepts defeat and gives up hunting Moby Dick, we see a wiser man than Ahab. The fellowship and good cheer represented by the Samuel Enderby, as well as the crew’s decision to not pursue a fatal quest, is a more appealing way of interpreting life than the egotistical, monomaniacal pursuit of Ahab.

In this section, Ishmael provides more details into whaling and the usage of the oil that comes from the whale. He also, somewhat irreverently, draws a parallel between whaling and religion in his description of the whale’s “Cossack,” or penis skin, being used like a priest’s robes by the mincer. His rhapsody about the pleasures of kneading the sperm with his fellow sailors is particularly striking, both for its obvious homoeroticism and for the remarkable conclusion he draws from it—he equates the pleasures of squeezing sperm with the other sailors to the ultimate pleasure of a home, a spouse, and a life built together.

The Spanish doubloon is interpreted by each member in a uniquely individualistic manner. Ahab only sees himself in the imagery, which underlines his exclusion of everything else apart from himself, exhibiting a God-like complex that overshadows all aspects of life. Starbuck, a man devoted to his religion, visualizes the Christian trinity. Stubb initially sees the doubloon as money but tries to find a deeper meaning through the zodiac. Pip interprets the doubloon as the “naval” of the ship, which perhaps is closer to the truth; considering the doubloon is the promised reward for spotting Moby Dick, it is the thing which ties the whole crew together as a single body.