Both Uses of
morass
in
Moby Dick
- And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way.†
Chpt 97-99 *
- As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea.†
Chpt 133-135
Definition:
-
(morass) a difficult situation that frustrates progress
or:
a soft wet area of low-lying land that sinks underfoot