Mar 02 2010
Hardened Ahab’s rejection of a fellow captain and father
In Chapter 128, “The Pequod Meets the Rachel,” the reader experiences one of Captain Ahab’s cruelest and most selfish moments in the novel. As he slows his speed to meet the other ship, Ahab unhesitatingly calls out in question of the white whale. He sickly yet predictably exhibits maniacal joy upon hearing from the captain that Moby Dick has indeed been sighted.
Next, this other captain boards The Pequod to petition his urgent cause to Ahab. One of his ship’s whale-boats has recently been lost, and on it is his twelve year-old son; thus, he pleads to Ahab to have the two ships join forces in pursuit of his son and other lost crewmates and agrees to pay entirely for the forty-eight hour search to make up for The Pequod’s lost profits during what Stubb describes as “the height of the whaling season” (469). This captain attempts to present his case in such a way that Ahab must relate to it and agree wholeheartedly to the request. In fact, the conversation between the two – if we can even call it a conversation, as Ahab does not utter a word until the very end – is like a man-to-man kind of talk. The captain tries to appeal foremost to Ahab’s sense of paternal affection and protectiveness: for instance, he implores, “‘Do to me as you would have me do to you in the like case. For you too have a boy, Captain Ahab – though but a child, and nestling safely at home – a child of your old age too – Yes, yes, you relent; I see it – run, run, men, now, and stand by to square in the yards’” (470).
However, there are warning signs to us readers that Ahab is not about to acquiesce – particularly in terms of his body language and facial expression. All while the captain of the Rachel expresses the graveness and desperation of his dilemma, Ahab is described as listening “icily” and standing “like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without the least quivering of his own” (470). This prepares us for his negative response: Ahab abruptly and curtly cuts off the fellow captain, just as he is assuming that The Pequod will join the hunt for his loved one, and rejects his wish. Ahab claims that his ship cannot afford to lose any time and that it must carry on its way at full speed; subsequently, “hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin, leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter rejection of his so earnest suit” (470). Ahab’s feelings have hardened so much so that he does not feel the homosocial bonds that should connect to him to other men and other sailors. He has abandoned the empathy and compassion of a parent. The only hunt Ahab is interested in is his personal one for vengeance. As I read this, I couldn’t help but tear up – Ahab is so sick and twisted, he cannot pause his chase for two days to help another man find his kin? Even Ahab’s crew, many of whom live in fear of their absolutist monarch, expect to take the more sympathetic and less selfish course, as Stubb remarks, “‘His son!…oh, it’s his son he’s lost! I take back the coat and watch-what says Ahab? We must save that boy’” (469).
Besides revealing more about Ahab as a character, this chapter lends the reader some interesting historical information about common whaling practices in the nineteenth century. The narrator informs us that, although not true in this case with the Rachel, a Nantucket captain typically sent his son away for three to four years to sail aboard another ship besides his own. This was done out of fear of the father losing his neutrality, which could negatively affect the success of the whaling expedition and the development of the young boy. Melville writes, “the first knowledge of a whaleman’s career shall be unenervated by any chance display of a father’s natural but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and concern” (470). As a boy growing up to be a whaler in Nantucket, you better have been prepared to grow up fast! No holding your father’s hand. And perhaps the captain of the Rachel has to learn a harsh lesson for going against the grain and trying to simultaneously play the roles of captain and father. Unfortunately for him in Chapter 128, he encounters the wrong ship run by the wrong man. Most likely his son will be lost forever to the mother sea…
3 Responses to “Hardened Ahab’s rejection of a fellow captain and father”
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Just to add, the motif of the ships being cast as feminine figures reoccurs, fittingly, at the end of this chapter. Melville writes, “But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for the children, because they were not” (471). This passage is also (yet) another instance of Melville’s beautiful alliteration, imagery, and personification.
I found it really interesting to look at Ahab’s behavior as the novel came to an end, which is what drew me to read your post. I think your last paragraph, in which you discuss how it was a typical whaling practice for father’s not to bring their sons on their own ships (obvious conflict of interest in cases like the Rachel’s), may also speak to Ahab’s hardened character and show the extent to which he has abandoned humanity for the whaling world. We could view Ahab’s actions in denying the captain of the Rachel’s request as not just blind to anything but the killing of Moby Dick, but also as teaching this captain a lesson. Ahab, being forty years acquainted with (i.e. heavily immersed in) the whaling world, must know this rule of sending your sons on another ship, and his icy behavior towards the Rachel’s captain may exhibit a “this is what you get when you don’t follow the rules” type attitude. In this case, Ahab shows how he is more a part of the whaling world than of the human one. He cares more for the rules of the ocean than for the brotherly sentiments of humanity.
In response to jeklein-
I think you’re right about Ahab’s falling out of touch with humanity (and the practices and expectations of the human world), but at the same time I think it is necessary to differentiate the typical “whaling world” and atypical “whaling world” in which Ahab is engaged. His obsessive vendetta against Moby Dick has nothing to do with the commercial whaling process that dictates the voyages of most ships, which are run by “normal” captains. Although perhaps, as you say, Ahab is teaching the captain of the Rachel a lesson in professionalism and sailing conduct by ignoring his request, it seemed to me as I was reading the chapter that he was also ignoring the brotherhood that (should) exist between captains. After all, Stubb remarks that The Pequod should change its course and help the man find his son. He thinks it the right thing to do and expects Ahab to acquiesce.