This being my third or so reading of Moby Dick, I was tickled to find that I had not before noted the hilarity found in the relationship between the personalities of Stubb and Flask, and their names.<\/p>\n
He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. \u00a0Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. \u00a0What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. \u00a0Whether he ever thought of it at all might be a question…<\/p>\n
I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his peculiar disposition…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Stubb is clearly a man who lives for the moment, all the while puffing on a stogie. \u00a0His actions and attitude are relaxed, calm, uncaring, and often happily oblivious. \u00a0Stubb is also is a bit of a jokster, occasionally picking on Flask. \u00a0That Melville cast Stubb as a man of the herb is doubtful, but he is certainly characterized as such.<\/p>\n
…in his poor opinion, the wonderous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least a water-rat, requiring requiring only a little circumvention, and some small application of time to kill and boil. \u00a0This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the mater of whales…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Flask’s primary characteristics are an oppositional attitude, a seemingly foundationless hatred of whales, and rather short temper. \u00a0One can also assume he has a bit of a drinking problem. \u00a0While marijuana use was not really a salient (or at least public) issue in Melville’s time, alcohol certainly was. \u00a0Flask’s personality traits fit with those of a drunk.<\/p>\n
Stubb and Flask are often described as representatives of opposing philosophies, and to be sure they are. \u00a0However, I see them also as men of two different vices–and examples of the pitfalls of each. \u00a0As a pothead, Stubb is happy, carefree, but consequently oblivious to the dangers of whaling; as an alcoholic, Flask is angry, impulsive, and, like Stubb, unaware of the dangers he faces. \u00a0The difference is that Stubb has either forgotten the dangers, is too high to care, or has smoked himself into a philosophy of fatalism (the generally accepted philosophy of Stubb), while Flask is blinded by his anger\/hatred, or is so mad at the whales he’d die trying to kill one. \u00a0Stubb can’t see through the smoke, and Flask’s vision is blurred by the booze.<\/p>\n
Might be a stretch, but I had fun writing about it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This being my third or so reading of Moby Dick, I was tickled to find that I had not before noted the hilarity found in the relationship between the personalities of Stubb and Flask, and their names. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. \u00a0Long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600","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=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}