When describing how whales feed, Melville uses a simile that compares the process to mowers cutting grass:
As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.
Here, Melville’s comparison of the “monster” whales to mowers cutting grass creates a domestic image that instills the whales with an unexpected gentleness and innocence. The comparison is also symbolic of the kind of cultivation associated with civil society, with mowing an act of taming nature. The use of alliteration in the repetition of the /m/ and /s/ sounds—“side by side slowly and seethingly” and the “morning mowers” in the “marshy meads”—aids this tone of civility, with the softness of the sounds reflecting the peacefulness of the image.
The emphasis on the domesticity of the whales made by the simile is significant to the novel, in which it is the danger and brutality of whales that is frequently emphasized. By comparing the whales to mowers, Melville draws a parallel between humans and whales that hints at the fact that their natures may not be so different. Just like his descriptions of life on the ship, which describes both bloody episodes of the crew when hunting as well as the mundanities and civilities of everyday life, Melville shows how the whales’ natures can be both bestial and genteel. Melville's unconventional simile, with "monster" whales and genteel mowers an unlikely comparison, may be intentionally jarring to reflect the equally harsh duality of humanity and nature.
In the passage describing the shipmates’ squeezing of the sperm, Melville uses alliteration to emphasize the sensorial element of the process. Ishmael describes the pleasure he is overcome with when squeezing the sperm:
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally.
The high frequency of alliteration—the "squeezed" "sperm," the “gentle globules,” the “abounding, affectionate” feelings—gives the passage a musical tone that reflects the sense of communal harmony and pleasure that Ishmael describes. The use of sibilance (the repetition of /s/ sounds) viscerally invokes the slipperiness of the sperm, helping to make the imagery more evocative while putting an emphasis on the sensorial nature of the experience being described.
Indeed, it is arguably the sensuality of this passage that is most significant. Ishmael’s description of the process borders both on the spiritual and sexual, with the squeezing of the sperm and the subsequent squeezing of his shipmates’ hands throwing Ishmael into a euphoric trance—a state reflected in the richness and melodiousness of the prose. The physical sensuality of the experience may also hint at the passage having homoerotic undertones. Such an interpretation may be further suggested by a later reference to the “inexpressible sperm,” a description that perhaps also hints at the unspoken homoerotic desire that Ishmael—and possibly his shipmates—feel in this moment.
