ABSTRACT
A “situational” version of the universal thump occurs earlier, when Peter Coffin tricks Ishmael into sharing a bed with a cannibal. The final thumpee is the “sky-hawk” which interposes “its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood,” and, victim of Tashtego’s last defiant blow at the cosmos is pulled down with the ship into the abyss. The Christian God thus becomes a central source of the “universal thump.” He bears, in fact, a suspicious resemblance to Ishmael’s “unaccountable old joker” delivering “hits” and “punches” to man—except that man’s relation to God is no joking matter. Ishmael would inevitably be struck by the gross disproportion between means and ends which seems to characterize the activities of the Christian God. Ishmael is aware that summer-time New Bedford is “sweet to see; full of fine maples—long avenues of green and gold.” Ishmael stresses that the Pequod is even more sharkish than her name.
