Moby Dick Chapter 7 - 9

Chapter 7 - 9

The Chapel/The Pulpit/The Sermon

It being Sunday, Ishmael decides to visit a Whaleman's Chapel.

Topic Tracking: Religion 2

Inside, he finds a small congregation of sailors, and sailors' widows. There are monuments to the fallen seamen on the walls by the pulpit. Ishmael sees Queequeg is also there. He thinks briefly on the bitterness of dying at sea.

Father Mapple enters the church and climbs onto the pulpit, which is designed as the stern of a ship.

The church is called to order, in the language of the sea: "'Starboard gangway, there! side away to larboard- larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships!'" Chapter 9, pg. 33 Father Mapple leads the congregation in a prayer and a hymn, then delivers a sermon. The subject is the story of Jonah, a man who tried to avoid the order of God to become a prophet. Jonah tried to escape from God by going to sea, but was swallowed by a whale.

Topic Tracking: Fate 3
Topic Tracking: Religion 3