Meaning: Assessment and letting go of the past. Rebirth and karma.
Depiction: That most famous scene in the last chapter where Moby Dick takes out the Pequod with a blow of his forehead, watched by a stunned crew in Ahab's boat and Ishmael swimming alongside it. The three harpooneers, Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego are at the mastheads, with Tashtego at the top mast, hammer in hand. Everyone still alive at this point knows it's about to be all over.
Text: Chapter 135: The Chase - Third Day
From the ship’s bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship’s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled.
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