“God keep me! — God keep us all!”<\/p>\n
-Starbuck, The Quarter-Deck<\/em><\/p>\n Throughout the novel, Starbuck is forced into the rather uncomfortable situation of being the First Mate to a madman.\u00a0 The mate is stuck with a captain who he honestly believes is leading his crew into great danger, and almost certainly into death.\u00a0 It is one of the oldest dilemmas there is: duty versus morality.\u00a0 Do you follow orders when you believe that they are not only misguided but, in all likelihood, insane?<\/p>\n I determined after reading The Quarter-Deck<\/em> to look into the similarities between Starbuck\u2019s situation and that of another of Shakespeare\u2019s characters: Brutus, of Julius Caesar<\/em>.\u00a0 Both are central members of their respective governmental bodies, and both struggle with the fear that their leader is going down a dangerous path.<\/p>\n It seems to me that Starbuck and Brutus share the quality of nobility.\u00a0 Brutus is the \u201cnoblest Roman of them all\u201d according to Marc Antony, and it is clear to me that Starbuck is the noblest mate on the ship, as his two associates are full of vice and lack his leadership.\u00a0 Flask and Stubb are defined by their vices: drinking and smoking.\u00a0 Starbuck sincerely questions his leader\u2019s choices in the name of his crew\u2019s safety.\u00a0 He contemplates killing his leader, just as Brutus does, in order to bring his crew back home safely.\u00a0 Unfortunately for the crew, himself included, he chose not to follow his gut instinct.\u00a0 And though he attempts to persuade Ahab that his vengeance can lead them only to despair, he fails in his goal.\u00a0 And his son will never greet him on the hill at Nantucket\u2019s port.<\/p>\n Brutus and Starbuck are, in their essence, the same character; they are men trapped in an impossible situation, stuck between duty to follow orders and good sense and honesty.\u00a0 Their only major difference is that Brutus goes forth with the assassination of his close friend and leader, while Starbuck lets Ahab drive onward.<\/p>\n The words of Marc Antony describe these men best:<\/p>\n \u201cThis was the noblest Roman of them all: “God keep me! — God keep us all!” -Starbuck, The Quarter-Deck Throughout the novel, Starbuck is forced into the rather uncomfortable situation of being the First Mate to a madman.\u00a0 The mate is stuck with a captain who he honestly believes is leading his crew into great danger, and almost certainly into death.\u00a0 It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,87],"tags":[320,319,273,321],"class_list":["post-1234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character","category-sources-or-literary-allusions","tag-brutus","tag-julius-caesar","tag-starbuck","tag-the-quarter-deck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1236,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions\/1236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAll the conspirators, save only he,
\nDid that they did in envy of great Caesar;
\nHe, only in a general honest thought
\nAnd common good to all, made one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"