Shortly after Ahab\u2019s first appearance to the crew, in which he gives his speech and reveals the true nature of their quest, Starbuck makes an interesting comment regarding his fellow shipmates:<\/p>\n
\u201cOh God! To sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them!\u00a0 Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea.\u00a0 The white whale is their demigorgon!\u201d (150)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Of course, the lack of a feminine presence on the ship is a topic which has already been noted several times.\u00a0 I found it interesting, however, that here Starbuck makes a direct reference to the lack of a mother’s influence on his crewmates, suggesting that they have been somehow tainted by their voyage and made something other than human.\u00a0 Perhaps it is not surprising that this character, who has been established as a religious and conservative family man, is so opposed to the violent spirit of masculinity that seems to have overrun the ship following Ahab\u2019s speech.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it is significant that he states his opinion directly to us and continues to condemn his colleagues so thoroughly.<\/p>\n
Ahab, in the depths of his genius and his insanity, is not overly subtle in his attempt to manipulate the crew into following him without question.\u00a0 \u00a0He uses the speech not only to imbibe a sense of adventure and thrill of the hunt , but also to strengthen the homosocial bonds between the crew, constantly addressing them as \u201cmen\u201d or \u201cboys.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0In the chapter immediately preceding Starbuck\u2019s comment Ahab says to himself (or perhaps the reader), \u201cTwas not so hard a task.\u00a0 I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve\u201d (149).\u00a0 Even the weary Starbuck will not yet do anything other than quietly mourn for what he believes will prove to be a disastrous turn of events.\u00a0 If the Pequod<\/em> is to be interpreted as a nation, it is a nation where the \u201cfeminine\u201d values of peace and rational thinking have been thrown to the sea in favor of a group mentality entirely focused on chasing and killing Moby Dick.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, to some degree, Melville shares Starbuck\u2019s fear of this dictator who is capable of inspiring fear, awe, and ultimately loyalty in his subjects on the way to a kind of totalitarianism.\u00a0 In this respect it is not difficult to imagine why some in the 1930s looked back at Moby Dick<\/em> and thought Melville anticipated this kind of militaristic regime.\u00a0 One might say that rather than race or religion, the spirit of hypermasculinity has become a critical rallying point for these sailors who completely buy into Ahab’s own agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shortly after Ahab\u2019s first appearance to the crew, in which he gives his speech and reveals the true nature of their quest, Starbuck makes an interesting comment regarding his fellow shipmates: \u201cOh God! To sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them!\u00a0 Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601","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=601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}