Moby-Dick · Chapter
CXIII: The Forge explained
Captain Ahab visits the ship's blacksmith, Perth, to commission a special harpoon for hunting Moby Dick.
What happens
Captain Ahab visits the ship's blacksmith, Perth, to commission a special harpoon for hunting Moby Dick. He provides nail-stubs from racing horseshoes as the material, demanding an unbreakable weapon. Ahab actively participates in the forging, and the harpoon is tempered not in water but in the blood of the three pagan harpooneers. Ahab baptizes the weapon in the name of the devil, completing his blasphemous tool of vengeance.
Themes in this chapter
Obsession and Revenge
The entire chapter is a ritual of obsession. Ahab's personal involvement in forging the harpoon, his use of symbolic materials, and the blasphemous baptism transform the tool into a physical extension of his monomaniacal quest for vengeance.
Religion and Spirituality
Ahab perverts Christian ritual by baptizing the harpoon 'in nomine diaboli' (in the name of the devil), using the blood of pagans. This act explicitly aligns his quest with diabolical forces, rejecting conventional spirituality for a personal, vengeful creed.
Madness and Sanity
Ahab questions why the miserable Perth is not mad, stating he is 'impatient of all misery in others that is not mad.' This highlights Ahab's own descent, where madness is the only logical response to his suffering and the only state he can tolerate in those around him.
Characters to notice
- Captain Ahab
Driven and manic, he oversees the forging of his demonic harpoon, revealing the depth of his scar (physical and spiritual) and baptizing the weapon in the name of the devil.
- Perth
The resigned, scarred blacksmith who forges Ahab's harpoon, expressing fear about its purpose but carrying out the captain's orders.
- Fedallah
Silently passes by the forge, bowing over the fire as if invoking a curse or blessing on the work, adding an aura of supernatural prophecy.
- Tashtego
One of the three harpooneers who willingly gives his blood to temper the harpoon's barbs.
- Queequeg
One of the three harpooneers who willingly gives his blood to temper the harpoon's barbs.
- Daggoo
One of the three harpooneers who willingly gives his blood to temper the harpoon's barbs.
Key passages
““Are these thy Mother Carey’s chickens, Perth? they are always flying in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all;—look here, they burn; but thou—thou liv’st among them without a scorch.””
Ahab notes the sparks from the forge are like storm petrels (Mother Carey's chickens), omens that burn others but leave the already-scarred Perth untouched.
Highlights Perth's endured suffering and Ahab's poetic, ominous view of the world.
““I, too, want a harpoon made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will stick in a whale like his own fin-bone.””
Ahab demands a harpoon of supernatural strength, one that will hold fast in Moby Dick as if it were a part of the whale itself.
Shows Ahab's desire for a weapon equal to his mythic foe, beyond normal human craftsmanship.
““ Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli! ””
"I do not baptize you in the name of the father, but in the name of the devil!"
The climax of the chapter's blasphemy, formally dedicating the weapon and his quest to evil.