Chapter 22: Merry Christmas
The Pequod leaves Nantucket on a cold
Christmas Day. Bildad and Peleg pilot the ship out of port. Ahab
still has not appeared on deck. Ishmael finds the start of the voyage
disconcerting and is meditating upon his situation when he receives
a kick and a scolding from Peleg. The Pequod is
soon clear of the harbor and into the open ocean, and Bildad and
Peleg take a small boat back to shore as the whaling ship “plunge[s]
like fate into the lone Atlantic.”
Chapter 23: The Lee Shore
Ishmael offers a brief portrait of Bulkington,
a sailor whom he first meets in New Bedford. Ishmael watches Bulkington
steer the Pequod and thinks of him as a restless
pioneer, fated to die at sea. Ishmael considers this kind of death
infinitely preferable to fading away through cowardice, and, in
an imaginary address to Bulkington, declares that the death at sea
will transform Bulkington into a god.
Chapter 24: The Advocate
Ishmael proceeds to stand up for the whaling profession,
arguing that whaling is heroic, economically critical, and has expanded
geographical knowledge. He defends the dignity of whaling by pointing to
the involvement of noble families in the industry, to the fact that the
Bible and other books mention whales, and to the fact that Cetus,
the whale, is a constellation in the southern sky. Ishmael closes
by declaring that anything worthwhile that he might accomplish can
be credited to his time spent on a whaling ship, his “Yale College”
and his “Harvard.”
Chapter 25: Postscript
Ishmael adds some speculation to the previous chapter’s
“facts.” He reminds the reader that sperm whale oil is used in the
coronation of royalty, and suggests that sperm oil has been used
to anoint kings because it is the best, purest, and sweetest of
oils.
Chapter 26: Knights and Squires
In the first of the two chapters called “Knights and Squires,”
we meet the first mate, Starbuck, a pragmatic, reliable Nantucketer. Starbuck
believes that it is rational—and necessary—to fear whales, and his
reverence for nature inclines him toward superstition. He is characterized
by the other officers of the Pequod as “careful,” although
this term is relative when used to describe a whaler. Speaking about
Starbuck leads Ishmael to reflect upon the dignity of the working
man. Ishmael finds evidence of God in even the “meanest mariners”
and admits that he will frequently ignore people’s faults to emphasize
their “democratic dignity.”
Chapter 27: Knights and Squires
This chapter introduces the rest of the Pequod’s
officers. The pipe-smoking second mate, Stubb, a native of Cape
Cod, is always cool under pressure and possesses “impious good humor.”
The third mate, Flask, a native of Tisbury on Martha’s Vineyard,
is a short, stocky fellow with a confrontational attitude and no
reverence for the dignity of the whale. He is nicknamed “King-Post”
because he resembles the short, square timber known by that name
in Arctic whalers. Each mate commands one of the small harpoon boats
that are sent out after whales, and each has a “squire,” his harpooner: Queequeg
is Starbuck’s harpooner; Tashtego, “an unmixed Indian from Gay Head,”
on Martha’s Vineyard, is Stubb’s harpooner; and Daggoo, “a gigantic,
coal-black negro-savage” from Africa with an imperial bearing, is
Flask’s harpooner.
