Chapter 76: Moby Dick

"The Battering Ram" The chapter explains exactly what it is called. Ishmael gives a foreshadow of the head of the whale being a battering ram, "an almost vertically plane to the water." being a foreshadow because we know that eventually Moby Dick will be smashing into the hull of the Pequod. However also an Irony because the whalers best prize comes from the precious oil inside this ram sometimes exceeding 500 gallons of oil. The oil that they live by is the oil that they are killed by.Ishmael then goes to ask, "what befell the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's veil at sais?" This seems as a threat to anybody who tries to lift the veil, in the terms of whaling however, the veil is Moby Dicks life.