In Chapter 25 ‘Post Script’, Ishamel argues for the imperial status of his career “Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whaleman supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff!” In this scene, the suppliers are the essential component to ensure the hierarchy of England survives onto its next leader, calling the attention of the loyalists to truly understand the necessity and distinction of the whaleman in sustaining the empire. In this empire, the capturing and commodification of the whale mirrors an essential scene of colonialism; that is the capture, sale and murder of Africans and Indigenous peoples throughout the world for growth and propagation of empires. In taking the whaleman all the way up to the kings and queens of England, where once the sun never set on its empire, Melville makes this connection of whaling to a larger context of colonial superpowers exploiting lands (oceans) and bodies (whales) that are not their own for the capital gain of kings and queens, individuals who will never step foot on both whaleships or slave ships. The whaler represents the systems (racism, capitalism, colonialism) that kept empires such as England and eventually the United States thriving at the expense of brown and black bodies. In a more modern context, the whaleman is a system of institutional and ideological barriers that warrant the economic disparity between the people (whales) and 1% (kings and queens). The whales are the stuff that ensure a coronation takes place, but not without the whaleman delivering.

The whaleman represents many different ideas throughout the novel, but Chapter 25 captures the whaleman in a specific light, one of pride in his position in the civilized world. The whaleman is an individual who sees his work as important to those he will never meet or even live similarly to, that is the kings and queens. The whaleman and the king live on different ends of the economic spectrum, yet without the whaleman there is no coronation, no assurance of his reign and thus system surviving. Whaling is not for the benefit of the whaler, he may have little economic gain but it is nothing compared to the gain of the larger empire. Whaling is impossible with just a single individual, it takes many individuals to be convinced that their position is prideful for the system of whaling to be a successful one. Ishamel is prideful in his declaration and asserts his identity to the system of whaling through the use of ‘ye’ and ‘we’, ‘we’ becomes the larger, shared identity of the whaler and ‘ye’ is everyone else, including the reader. Through this shared identity of whaling and separation from those who do not, Ishamel exemplifies the ways in which exploitative systems survive beyond the benefit of the individual. The ‘individual’ whaler whose labor upholds the industry is being sold this idea of pride in the system where the economic disparity between him and the king is immense, seeing himself as being less close to the loyal Britons than the King on his coronation day, for it was him that supplied the stuff and not those Britons. Through this intentional contrast, Melville highlights how in oppressive systems the illusion and pride of individuality is sold to the masses to separate them from one another, rather selling them the possibility of being closer to wealth than reality. The reality is that the whaler has more in common with the loyal Briton than the king on his coronation day. 

Another aspect of whaling asks that whales are captured and stripped for parts in their own home, parts that are used by kings and queens as well as dispersed throughout the ‘civilized’ world to those who can afford its product. Through the similar ideology and imagery, whaling mirrors the events that precede and continuously trail a colonial superpower, that is events of mass murder, slavery and exploitation of both body and land. The whaleman is who captures, murders and sells the whale, the whaleman is who feeds the empire through his violence. The whaleman is an ideology of racism, capitalism and colonialism. In deeming the whale an evil creature, in othering the whale into something completely alien rather than a being deserving of dignity, the whaleman leaps past the barrier of empathy that makes violence difficult to enact. Empires, and the actual people who crossed the oceans seeking to exploit, must deem the people and lands alien in the same sense the whaler does to the whale. The Africans and Indigenous are othered in order to capture their bodies and their homes, Melville’s whale is a microcosm of this ideology and history. The whaler also seeks economic gain, selling the whale over and over again, its body becoming an economic concept rather than a part of the natural world. The whale cannot be understood, or ignorantly believed to be, by the whaler. The whale is translated in strictly economic terms. In Ishamel’s defense, the whale is even sold to the king and queen, for it is used in the passing on of kingdomhood, keeping the exploitative system untouched. 

Melville picks at the concept of a colonial empire through exemplifying one of the most famous in Chapter 25. Colonial empires cannot be built without racism and the exploitation of indigenous peoples and lands. The ideology of the whaleman is the core of colonial empires, and the whaleman is who supplies the product for the coronation of the kings and queens. While Ishmael explains many reasons why he is prideful in his occupation, there is a double entendre to his statement in Chapter 25 that Melville pokes at. The whaler has the ideology necessary to live in a system that capitalizes, murders and exploits bodies, ranging from human to whale. The whaler upholds his position himself through a delusion of pride, pride that it is him that supplies for the coronation, that it is him who upholds the colonial empire that exploits him too without him realizing. In this sense, Melville critiques the colonial empire for not only its actions abroad but those at home. The colonial empire sells a belief, one that countless whalers buy to be able to function in the empire.