- description
- # Chapter 120
## Overview
This entity is **Chapter 120** of Herman Melville’s novel *Moby Dick; Or, The Whale* (arke:01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D), a literary work structured as part of a digital text archive. The chapter is titled "120" and consists of 27 lines of narrative text, extracted from the source file [moby-dick.txt](arke:01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2) and processed on January 23, 2026. It is part of a sequence of chapters in the final section of the novel, positioned between [Chapter 119. The Candles](arke:01KFNR85HJDVTNWYXAH3Q3S8TV) and [Chapter 121](arke:01KFNR85HR8EBXAX8N8WBV995F), and belongs to the [Moby Dick](arke:01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV) collection.
## Context
This chapter occurs during a violent typhoon at sea, immediately following the destruction of Ahab’s whaleboat in [Chapter 119. The Candles](arke:01KFNR85HJDVTNWYXAH3Q3S8TV). The storm serves as a dramatic backdrop for escalating tension between Captain Ahab and First Mate Starbuck, reflecting both physical danger and spiritual conflict. The narrative is set aboard the whaling ship *Pequod*, as it pursues Moby Dick toward the equatorial Pacific. The digital version of the text was compiled from multiple electronic sources, including Project Gutenberg and the ERIS project, and has been segmented into chapters for structured archival access.
## Contents
Chapter 120 captures a tense dialogue between Starbuck and Stubb, in which Starbuck interprets the storm as a divine warning against Ahab’s obsessive quest. He observes that the gale comes from the east—the same direction as Moby Dick—and sees symbolic meaning in the destruction of Ahab’s boat at the stern, where Ahab stands. Starbuck muses that the wind could be turned into a fair one to carry the ship homeward to Nantucket, contrasting doom ahead with hope behind. At that moment, Ahab appears, silhouetted by lightning, identifying himself as “Old Thunder.” The chapter ends with a reference to lightning rods, foreshadowing the supernatural and destructive imagery that will unfold in the following chapter, as the storm intensifies and the crew witnesses eerie electrical phenomena known as “corpusants” on the masts.
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- hand towards the weather bow, “markest thou not that the gale comes
from the eastward, the very course Ahab is to run for Moby Dick? the
very course he swung to this day noon? now mark his boat there; where
is that stove? In the stern-sheets, man; where he is wont to stand—his
stand-point is stove, man! Now jump overboard, and sing away, if thou
must!
“I don’t half understand ye: what’s in the wind?”
“Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to
Nantucket,” soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb’s
question. “The gale that now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn it
into a fair wind that will drive us towards home. Yonder, to windward,
all is blackness of doom; but to leeward, homeward—I see it lightens up
there; but not with the lightning.”
At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness, following
the flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost at the same
instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead.
“Who’s there?”
“Old Thunder!” said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his
pivot-hole; but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed
lances of fire.
Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to carry off
- title
- 120