Moby-Dick
During the "gams" between two ships in Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick, the communication- or lack thereof- between the ships often serves as foreshadowing of the Pequod's ultimate demise. The gams, meant to be seen as a social gathering between the two ships to exchange mail and news, occur during Moby-Dick nine times. Each of the gams sheds some light on the quest for the great whale, but ultimately it is the communication that occurs between the Pequod and the other ships, particularly the Albatross, the Jeroboam, and the Samuel Enderby, that dictates the kind of information that will be gathered during the gam.
The gam between the Pequod and the Albatross is the first gam in Moby-Dick. Although the gam with the Albatross is not particularly successful, the lack of communication between the Pequod and the Albatross during the gam has much significance. When the Pequod and the Albatross first meet, Ahab's first question to the captain of the ship is "Have you seen the White Whale?" This same question is asked of the other eight ships that the Pequod encounters, and when Ahab doesn't get a good answer to this question, he refuses to participate in the gam. Because Ahab is so focused on whether the captain of the ship has seen the white whale, he is unwilling to participate in gams unless he can use them to gain information relevant to his quest. Ahab waits anxiously for the captain of the Albatross, to answer his question. But the captain's speaking trumpet falls into the sea, and his unamplified voice doesn't carry in the wind. To the Pequod's sailors, the accident is a symbol of Moby-Dick's evil power. It is also Melville's way of saying that there are mysteries that can't be communicated to others, and that the future is unknowable. Melville gives another clue to Ahab's personality when he describes the captain's reaction as the wakes of the two ships intermingle and schools of fish that had been swimming alongside the Pequod go over to the Albatross....
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