Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

第三十八章 Dusk.

In this soliloquy delivered by Starbuck while leaning against the mainmast, the first mate reveals his tortured inner conflict regarding Captain Ahab, whom he describes as having “blasted all my reason out of me” through the insufferable command he exerts over the crew. Starbuck feels bound to Ahab by an indestructible spiritual cable, trapped between his obligation to obey and his horror at Ahab’s blasphemous pursuit of the white whale, a situation he describes with grim irony as the office of “obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity.” The contrast between the wild revelry forward and the oppressive silence aft strikes him as a vivid picture of existence itself, with the ship’s bow shooting gay and embattled through the sea only to drag the brooding Ahab after it like a dark fate. Despite his despair at feeling his heart is “like lead” and his whole “clock’s run down,” Starbuck clings to the hope that God’s providence may yet thwart Ahab’s heaven-insulting purpose, and in a final gesture of defiance against the “grim, phantom futures,” he invokes the blessed influences to sustain him in his struggle.

Starbuck’s Soliloquy by the Mainmast

Starbuck leans against the mainmast and delivers a poignant soliloquy revealing his inner turmoil. He feels “overmanned” by the madman Ahab, whose insane pursuit of the white whale has destroyed all his reason. Though he foresees Ahab’s impious end, Starbuck recognizes he feels compelled to assist in achieving it. The captain’s democratic posturing toward those above contrasts with his tyrannical lordship over those below. Starbuck laments his “miserable office—to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity.” Despite glimpsing some dreadful woe in Ahab’s eyes that would shrivel him, Starbuck retains a flickering hope that time and tide may yet divert the whale’s heaven-insulting purpose. Yet his spirit feels weighted like lead, his vital energy depleted.