Moby-Dick Chapter 105 Summary

Summary

The chapter opens with the narrator questioning whether whales have degenerated in size across geological time or since human history began. He surveys fossil records and contemporary measurements, noting that modern whales often equal or exceed the sizes ascribed to ancient specimens; he rejects extravagant claims by ancient and later naturalists who report impossibly gigantic whales. The narrator invokes authorities such as Pliny, Aldrovandus, Banks and Solander’s naturalists, and Lacépède, but treats their enormous figures with scorn, confidently asserting that modern whalemen would correct Pliny.

Shifting to the question of extinction, the narrator compares the whale-hunt to the slaughter of North American buffalo to examine whether intense human pursuit might exterminate whales. He argues that the nature of whaling — small human crews capturing relatively few whales over long voyages — differs radically from the mass, land-based slaughter of buffalo and therefore makes full extermination unlikely. He observes that social and behavioral changes in whales (forming large, widely-separated herds or migrating to remoter seas) complicate impressions of decline. Additionally, some species have refuges in polar regions and vast oceanic ranges; enormous annual catch numbers still do not necessarily imply irreversible depletion. The narrator further reasons that whales’ great longevity and vast global habitat, plus overlapping generations, make the species resilient. Concluding with a grand image, he declares the whale effectively immortal as a species and enduring across geologic and biblical floods, triumphing over human attempts at eradication.

Key events

1. Question whether whales have degenerated in size since ancient times
2. Compare fossil measurements with modern whale sizes and dismiss exaggerated reports
3. Examine whether intensive whaling could lead to extinction, comparing to buffalo slaughter
4. Argue differences in hunting methods make whale extermination unlikely
5. Note whales' polar refuges, vast habitat, and long lifespans as survival factors
6. Conclude whales are effectively immortal as a species and will outlast human efforts

Analysis

This chapter functions as a digression that combines natural history, skeptical commentary, and philosophical reflection. It reinforces Melville’s recurring theme of human hubris versus the vastness of nature: the narrator ridicules authoritative sounding but unreliable naturalists and reasserts the whaleman’s empirical knowledge. The polemical voice — confident, ironic, and comparative — advances character: the narrator is worldly, skeptical of received wisdom, and invested in the practical claims of mariners. Structurally, the essayistic chapter provides scale and cosmological perspective, enlarging the novel’s thematic concerns about man’s attempt to master, interpret, and possibly destroy the natural world.

Symbolically, the whale becomes a figure for endurance and inscrutability; the debate over size and survival stands in for anxieties about mortality, historical change, and human impact. The chapter foreshadows later confrontations by juxtaposing human temporality with leviathanic longevity. Narrative technique mixes anecdote, authority citation, and hyperbolic imagery (e.g., ‘‘Rope Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales’’) to undercut grandiose claims and to celebrate empirical observation. The tone balances learned mockery with a grand, almost mythic meditation on species permanence, aligning the whale with geological and biblical time and thus expanding the novel’s moral and metaphysical stakes.

Important quotes

“Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks; and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they are drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred,”

NarratorArgues against accepting ancient claims that whales were once vastly larger, using comparisons with other species and Egyptian artifacts to dismiss degeneration.

“Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales for forty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank God, if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish.”

NarratorUses practical whaling experience to contrast the inefficiency of whaling with land-based mass hunts, undermining the extinction argument.

“Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality.”

NarratorConcludes the chapter by asserting the whale's species-level endurance despite individual deaths, framing the animal as timeless and resilient.

Characters in Chapter 105

• Pliny
• Aldrovandus
• Banks
• Solander
• Lacépède
• Harto
• King of Siam
• Semiramis
• Porus
• Hannibal
• Noah