{"id":"01KG8AM6R19J4B6G99AJZ58GYX","cid":"bafkreie2r4ndhxbsbbes4gy6sulxdhbxt3rppbbn6krbhs3mqby7xeyn2m","type":"section","properties":{"description":"# Epilogue\n## Overview\nThis entity is the \"Epilogue\" section from the novel *Moby-Dick; or, The Whale*, spanning lines 21906 to 21937 of the source file. It is classified as a \"section\" within the larger structure of the novel.\n\n## Context\nThe \"Epilogue\" is part of the novel *Moby-Dick; or, The Whale* ([arke:01KG8AJ9GN1K052QJEZVGKXJ0T]), which was extracted from the file [moby_dick.txt](arke:01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6). The novel is included in the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. It directly follows [CHAPTER 135. The Chase.—Third Day.](arke:01KG8AM6R18AQMHM6ZM0F1777D). The \"Epilogue\" is contained within [BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER III. (_Mealy-mouthed Porpoise_)](arke:01KG8AK83BA227D6NY5BT040FM).\n\n## Contents\nThe \"Epilogue\" recounts the survival of Ishmael, the narrator, after the sinking of the Pequod. Ishmael describes how he survived by clinging to a coffin that surfaced amidst the wreckage. He was eventually rescued by the *Rachel*, a ship searching for its lost children, thus becoming another orphan found by the ship. The epilogue begins with a quote from the Book of Job: “AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE.”\n","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T20:51:17.927Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"Epilogue","end_line":21937,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:29.275Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Epilogue","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":21906,"text":"Epilogue\r\n\r\n“AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE” Job.\r\n\r\nThe drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth?—Because one\r\ndid survive the wreck.\r\n\r\nIt so chanced, that after the Parsee’s disappearance, I was he whom the\r\nFates ordained to take the place of Ahab’s bowsman, when that bowsman\r\nassumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three\r\nmen were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So,\r\nfloating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it,\r\nwhen the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but\r\nslowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had\r\nsubsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting\r\ntowards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly\r\nwheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that\r\nvital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by\r\nreason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising\r\nwith great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea,\r\nfell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost\r\none whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The\r\nunharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths;\r\nthe savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a\r\nsail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the\r\ndevious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing\r\nchildren, only found another orphan.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","title":"Epilogue"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AK83BA227D6NY5BT040FM","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM6R18AQMHM6ZM0F1777D","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:29.441Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:51:18.194Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}