Chapter V: Breakfast Ishmael eats breakfast. (Even though it is funnier to leave it at that, I feel I must add there is a discernible point to the scene. Ishmael expects whale tales, chatter, conversation at breakfast at the Spouter Inn, but there is none. Though the silence is not

Chapter IV: The Counterpane Ishmael wakes the next morning with Queequeg’s arm around him. The tattoos on Queequeg's arm match the pattern of the quilt, or so thinks Ishmael. After some struggle, Ishmael rouses Queequeg, who rises and dresses and then shaves — with his harpoon blade.

Chapter III: The Spouter-Inn The main point of this chapter is to introduce us to Queequeg, but naturally first we must follow Ishmael as he enters the inn, examines the sooty painting in the front hall (it’s a whaler), tries to engage a room and secure a bed — they’re

Chapter II: The Carpet Bag Now Ishmael makes it not so far as Nantucket, where he will actually sail from, but to New Bedford, where he must wait out a few days before the boat to Nantucket. He looks for lodging. Two are too expensive, one of them “too jolly.”

Chapter 1: Loomings Ah. Here we are. Chapter I. “Call me Ishmael.” Ishmael is what we can call him, but presumably Ishmael is not his name. He’s using a pseudonym and in the doing, he’s allying himself with Abraham’s son with his wife Sarah’s handmaid Hagar: Ishmael (and in my