How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
A Pisgah View From the Rock (5.55)
Mount Pisgah is supposed to be the mountain Moses climbed to see the Promised Land. So this is an ironic or cutesy reference. You climb up to the top of a big rock in the Galapagos, and you don't see a land flowing with milk and honey, but a lot of barren rocks and a few tortoises.
Quote #8
"The island's mine by Sycorax my mother," said Oberlus to himself…. (5.181)
This is a reference to Shakespeare's The Tempest; the evil Caliban, who lived on the island, was the child of the witch Sycorax. So this is a complicated way of saying that Oberlus is a monster and a meany. He could have just said, "Oberlus is a monster and a meany," but Melville lives for the Shakespeare reference.
Quote #9
And though it may seem very strange to talk of post-offices in this barren region, yet post-offices are occasionally to be found there. They consist of a stake and a bottle. The letters being not only sealed, but corked… Frequently, however, long months and months, whole years glide by and no applicant appears. The stake rots and falls, presenting no very exhilarating object. (5.215)
This is another kind of dead letter office; little messages in bottles left throughout the Galapagos. Humans are trying to make the Galapagos theirs in part by writing on them. This is what Melville's doing too; he's writing on the Galapagos in this very story. His story lasted longer than those bottles with the sticks rotting away. That's why he's a great writer rather than some exiled pirate dude.