All 3 Uses of
writhe
in
Moby Dick
- Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction.†
Chpt 58-60 *
- As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down into its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any sort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths; what landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and placidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in agony!†
Chpt 79-81
- 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:
-
(writhe) to move in a twisting or contorted motion -- often of a person when struggling or in pain