Having presented Ahab's proposal and the crew's reaction in dramatic form, Melville returns the telling of the story to Ishmael. The narrator admits that he, like most of the crew, was overpowered by Ahab's charismatic appeal, although Ishmael anticipates the rest of the voyage with dread in his soul.
We already know a fair amount about the White Whale, which we might think of as a key character in the novel. In these two chapters, Ishmael expands on its physical description and considers reports that range from likely to fanciful. From Ahab and the harpooners (Chapter 36), and now from Ishmael, we learn that Moby Dick is an exceptionally large sperm whale with a snow-white head, a wrinkled brow, a crooked jaw, an especially bushy spout, and three holes in the right fluke of his tail. His hump is also white and shaped like a pyramid. The rest of his body is marbled with white. He fantails oddly before he submerges. One of Moby Dick's favorite tricks is to seem to be fleeing but suddenly turn on his pursuers and destroy their open boats. Sailors attribute great intelligence and malignity to the White Whale.
