Moby-Dick Questions Ch. 96-98: How do you interpret the imagery of the Try-Works

How do you interpret the imagery of the Try-Works on pp. 462-463 [326-327])?  What do you make of Ishmael describing the harpooners as “wildly gesticulat[ing] with their huge pronged forks and dippers”? (p. 463 [327])  What causes such imagery?  How does the “blackness of darkness” here contrast with the “blackness of darkness” in the black church of ch. 1?  What startles Ishmael from his dream-like state, and what biblical significance does it imply?  What realization does Ishmael come to in the wake of his dream-like state?  Read the last three paragraphs of ch. 96 very carefully; they are some of the most beautiful in literature.  Compare these final paragraphs of ch. 96 with the final paragraph of “The Fountain,” ch. 85?  What is the relationship between wisdom, woe, and madness?  How does this passage illuminate Ahab, Starbuck, and Pip?