Chapter Summary Of Ismael By Ishmael

In chapter 74 Ismael is comparing two whales heads hanging on the pequod. He definitely expresses and describes what he sees in the whale and theorizes what he thinks the whale is doing. Ishmael states “while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of the whale’s eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separate the impressions which each independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore, must see one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct

This peculiarity of the whale’s eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes”. This shows the theory that Ishmael has when it comes to sperm whale and probably thinks any human can out smart this whale enough and kill it because it quote cannot see forward direction and only side to side. Ishmael at some point does question how a whale may potentially function throughout their everyday life by stating “A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a hint. So long as a man’s eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one’s experience will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to examine any two things—however large or however small—at one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side by side and touch each