Moby Dick

Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

CHAPTERS 1-20

Reading Check

1. What is the name of the inn where Ishmael stays?

2. Who is Ishmael’s bedmate at the inn?

3. Who is Captain Peleg?

4. What is Elijah’s warning to Ishmael and Queequeg?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. From what city does Ishmael want to sail? Why? What city does he sail from instead?

2. Who is Father Mapple? What is his sermon about?

3. How did Queequeg come to America?

Paired Resource

“Hypochondria”

• This short article in The Lancet summarizes the history of hypochondria, linked in Melville’s time to depression and “melancholia.”
• This information connects to the theme of “Hypos.”
• What did “hypochondria” mean to Melville and his contemporary audience? How is the 19th-century idea of hypochondria similar to the modern idea of depression? How is it different?

CHAPTERS 21-44

Reading Check

1. Who interrupts Ishmael and Queequeg as they are boarding the departing Pequod?

2. Who is Stubb?

3. Who is Flask’s second hand?

4. What is a “specksnyder”?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.