It’d probably be easy to imagine yourself on a ship, and maybe you have been on a ship at some point in your life, but I think Ishmael really makes the idle yet active task on being atop the mast-head a bit romantic. Romanticism encapsulates the idea of emotion over rationality, of being in the moment. There needs to be a sense of calm. Now, there probably won’t be any idea of calm when encountering a whale, or being so high up on the mast-head if you’re afraid of heights, but Ishmael describes the job as such:

“There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade wings blow; everything resolves you into languor.” (169)

Languor. Tiredness. The ship itself is tranced by the sea, hypnotized by the pattern that often causes sea-sickness for sailors present atop of the ship. Even so, Ishmael addresses the reader with many “yous” after this chunk of text I present, and it makes me wonder as to how we’re supposed to think about the idea of how tediousness this seems. He’s directly talking about a job that often causes sailors to be tired, but I think there’s this idea of a good and bad tired. On another note, there’s also something about standing up from a high place and looking down at the world as something to be conquered. Even though the vast majority of the sea is unknowable, there’s this idea of high and mightiness based on the position of the mast-head on the Pequod. Personifying and Romanticizing the ship is also something that helps ground these sailors, something terrestrial despite their job at sea. They have to be attached to the very thing that keeps them afloat.