Moby-Dick Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nantucket

The story's first action starts during a snowy December in New Bedford where Ishmael and Queequeg meet. The two travel together to the island of Nantucket where they seek employment on a whaling ship. During the 1800s, all of the four choices were whaling ports. The sperm whale, in particular, was prized as the oil was used for fuel.

Answer: A harpoon

Queequeg takes his harpoon literally everywhere including to bed with him! He shaves with his harpoon and uses it to grab meat at a meal. It is quickly discovered that Queequeg is brilliantly skilled at throwing the harpoon which helps secure him a spot on the ship. He becomes the harpooner for Starbuck, the ship's first mate.

Answer: Yojo

Queequeg follows an interesting type of animism religion where his idol Yojo gives him guidance as to what to do. Ishmael finds it curious that Queequeg will sit with his idol and burn incense to it. At one point, Queequeg decides to spend a period of silent time fasting before his idol.

This episode alarmed Ishmael as Queequeg had locked the door and was unresponsive once the landlord was able to get the door open. The outcome of this long trance was Yojo telling Queequeg that Ishmael would pick the ship on which to sail.

Answer: Pequod

The Pequod is taking on crew for a three-year whaling voyage. Ishmael's inexperience resulted in him being offered only 1/777th share of the spoils. However, Queequeg's prowess with the harpoon is prized at a 1/90th share and helps convince the owners of the ship to give Ishmael a 1/300th share.

The Pequod is named after the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe of Native Americans from the Connecticut area. The ship's captain is the strange and eccentric Captain Ahab who the reader does not meet until the ship is fully underway.

Answer: They are cannibals

Queequeg's father is the King of their fictional island of Rokovoko, suggested as possibly part of Polynesia. Queequeg's family are a tribe who practices the cannibalism of defeated enemies. Struck with wanderlust, Queequeg decides to leave his island and see the Christian world on a whaler that had landed there.

By the time the reader meets him, Queequeg has been away from home for a very long time and would possibly be king if he was still there.

Answer: Whalebone

It is only fitting that a whaling captain of Ahab's character would have a leg made out of whalebone. It is learned that he lost his leg to the white whale Moby Dick which fuels his obsession to find and kill the whale. Ahab is so set on killing Moby Dick that he nails a gold coin to the mast of the ship and says it belongs to whoever kills the white whale.

The novel probably took inspiration from the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick that sank the whaling ship, Essex, in 1820.

Answer: Pip

Pip is not a harpooner but rather a cabin boy. He is a short African American boy who is introduced as the least of the ship's crew but in reality, can be levelheaded. When Stubs lost a member of his crew, he had Pip join his boat. However, poor Pip is terrified and jumps out of the boat twice. Luck has it that the Pequod came alongside Pip the second time he jumped, but by this point, he is hallucinatory and never fully recovers.

His insanity does bring out a rarely seen soft side to Ahab who decides to protect Pip in his cabin. I guess Ahab recognizes a fellow sufferer of PTSD.

Answer: Stubb

The second mate Stubb, with his harpooner, Tashtego, kills the first whale of the journey. Stubb is a very likable character with an ever-present smile on his face and a pipe in his mouth. As his boat races to catch up to a whale, Stubb is spouting jolly sayings of encouragement for his men in a nonstop monolog. Stubb is the mate who employs poor Pip.

When the lad first gets tangled in a harpoon, Stubb opts to cut the line and let the whale go instead of losing Pip, but the second time Pip jumps, he doesn't go back for him.

Answer: No

***Spoiler Alert***


The distressed captain of the Rachel, a fellow Nantucketer, wishes to board the Pequod to inquire if the crew has seen his son's boat. Ahab is only interested in the whereabouts of Moby Dick and quickly says no to helping and states he is losing time to catch the whale. The contrast of the heartsick father with the obsessed madman is striking. Ironically it is the Rachel that finds Ishmael floating in the sea after the encounter with Moby Dick allowing him to survive to tell the tale.

Answer: They are educational rather than narrative.

Most of the book is a narrative novel, however, a few chapters pop up to teach one educational aspect or another about whaling. For example, one chapter catalogs the many types of whales while another explains the inner workings of a whaling ship's operation.

There is even a chapter detailing how a whale is stripped of its oil. None of the chapters are taken from the whale's perspective. While the book is not written in Latin, Melville's command of the English language is remarkable, making it a wonderful read for a lexophile.