Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 37

The repercussions of Ahab’s blasphemous ritual are registered textually in the chapters that follow “The Qurater-Deck.” Ishmael disappears from view, and we move from personal narrative to drama. This chapter, like the one before, begins with a stage direction: “(The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out.)” In his magisterial study,