On A Passage from Melville

I came upon here today this passage from Moby Dick, a work I've not read in toto for some years. How much richer it seems now! So much that I'd like to look at the selection in detail. The passage is from Ch. 96 in which the narrator describes the fat rendering furnace of the Pequod.

I'll reproduce the passage in miniature and then selections in bold followed by commentary.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers. 

What subterranean and alien imagery with Tartarean shapes and pagan harpooneers, which also share the same rhythmic profile (-u -u -.) Notice also the merging of the s in ship's stokers, as if the two are one.

With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. 

Here we have the alliteration of p in pronged, poles, and pitched, as well as assonance of s with hissing masses and scalding pots. Also note the prolepsis: the blubber wouldn't be hissing until it hit the pot. What shapely diction follows: snaky and darted and curling, and then the personification of the flames, as if they jump out of the oven to chomp at their provocateurs. You can feel the searing heat and crackling activity.

The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. 

What a gloomy pair: sullen heaps. Then the parallelism of to every pitch... there was a pitch and the assonance of boiling oil. Eagerness being predicated on oil may throw the modern reader, but the effect of all eagerness is not simply of personification but of amplification, as if the flames are not just eager, but the essence of pure eagerness. Then more alliteration of w with works, wide, wooden, was, and windlass, and of s with sea-sofa. Note here the verb preceding the subject, lounged the watch, to connect the ideas of sofa and lounged.

[A] Their tawny features, [B] now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, [C] their matted beards, and [D] the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, [E] all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. 

See the structure here: B modifies A, then D both modifies B and C and is parallel to them relative to E, and finally A, C, and D do the action of E. It reads easily enough, but to write...

What a great word, too: tawny. Notice begrimed and not grimy, the former emphasizing the cause of their grunge. The following phrases are similar yet contrasted: on the one hand begrimed and smoke and sweat have parallel syllable-lengths and on the other they have different aural profiles, the former consisting of mutes and nasals and the latter of sibilant liquids. What pleasing variety.

Next we see the alliterative barbaric brilliance of their teeth contrasted against the earlier imagery of their sooty faces. Melville finally ties up the pictures by telling us it was the strange light of the works, its capricious emblazonings, which revealed out these features. Can you not see their faces in the flickering flames?

As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; 

This section begins the climax of the passage and is structured on polysyndeton of as giving way to same with and. Within we have:

• Rhythmic parallelism in unholy and adventures: u-u
• Alliteration: tales of terror told
• Contrast of terror and mirth
• Simile: laughter forked... like the flames
• Contrasting imagery of forking upward and dipping downward
• Metonomy of hell for fire
• Personification of the wind with howled and sea with leaped 
• Personification of the ship with groaned, steadfastly, scornfully champed, mouth, and viciously spat.

Notice how the action moves from the men on the ship to the ship on the sea, and how the personification of the Pequod makes the ship's activity on the sea a contrasting parallel to the men's activity on the ship, contrasting because the men are carousing while the Pequod is straining. What an image here: the Pequod, rending her meal and spewing its fire round herself in defiance of the blackness and thrashing sea. Wow.

then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and 
plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul.

Now the climax with the subject followed by four descriptive phrases and then its predicate.

then the rushing Pequod, 
---freighted with savages, 
---and laden with fire, 
---and burning a corpse, 
---and plunging into that blackness of darkness, 
seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul.

That the interior phrases are parallel in structure yet so different in tone gives them an added punch, and what brutal imagery of savages, fire, and corpses. Melville ends the descriptive phrases contrasting the fire in the pleonasm of blackness and darkness.

Having deftly shifted focus from the ship, to the men, and back to the ship, Melville comes round to Ahab, likening the vengeful, flaming ship in the blackness to her monomaniacal captain's own roiling soul. This is not only a striking image, but an ingenious narrative shift from describing setting and plot to describing character and foreshadowing the intertwined fates of the vessel and her captain.