- description
- # The Purser's Auction
## Overview
This is a scene from Herman Melville's novel *White-Jacket*, extracted from the file [white_jacket.txt](arke:01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY). It is part of the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The scene depicts a purser's auction on board a man-of-war. It spans from line 7618 to line 7734 of the source text.
## Context
The scene is located within [CHAPTER XLVII.
AN AUCTION IN A MAN-OF-WAR.](arke:01KG8AJS39K1V9TPKTGQA17NAS) of *White-Jacket*. The preceding scene is titled "Narrator's decision to sell his jacket and arrangements for the auction" [Narrator's decision to sell his jacket and arrangements for the auction](arke:01KG8AKVRDYZSWB78BAK9SFG4M), and the subsequent scene is titled "Narrator's decision to sell his jacket and arrangements for the auction".
## Contents
This scene describes a purser's auction, a common event on naval ships to dispose of the belongings of deceased sailors. The scene introduces the Purser's steward, a charismatic and theatrical auctioneer, and details his humorous methods of selling items such as old boots. The narrator observes the auction and considers selling his own white jacket in a similar manner. The scene is divided into two chunks: [Chunk 1](arke:01KG8AMET8ZA7M0Z4RPH3MHNQV) which introduces the auction and the auctioneer, and [Chunk 2](arke:01KG8AMET8J18D1KF9C1H6MESN) which continues the description of the auction and the narrator's contemplation of selling his jacket.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:49:51.667Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- The Purser's Auction
- end_line
- 7734
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:16.646Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7618
- text
- null
- title
- The Purser's Auction