The two chapters we are going to focus on

I'm going to write about the final chapter the Chase: Final Day. Everyone writes about the final chapter, of course, but I'm also going to write about an earlier chapter: the Grand Armada. At the start of the Grand Armada, the Pequod is about to enter that gold green promontory known as the Java Head, now known as Tanjung Layar.

Java Head is described as a “central gateway opening into some vast walled empire: and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear the appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping western world.”

“owing to the unwearied activity with which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans” the whales had begun to form larger community groups “as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual assistance and protection”. The “aggregation of the Sperm Whale into such immense caravan” meant that whaling boats could “sail for weeks and months together, without being greeted by a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands.”

One such "immense caravan" now lay before the Pequod.

at the distance of some two or three miles, and forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the noon-day air.

What links the Grand Armada to the Final Chase? Concentric circles Calm enchantment Life and death Creation and destruction Harpoon lines and umbilical cords Capitalist extraction from nature

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