In chapter 25, Ishmael sounds like he has had enough with how people view workers in the whale industry. By using analogy of whalers as significant roles that generate society, he also gets caught up in not seeing how he unintentionally sabotages their role by indirectly subjecting their role for the sole lives of the upper class. He states that, “It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is gone through…Can it be…that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint their machinery?… As a general rule, he can’t amount to much in his totality”(Melville 123). These lines resonate with my last blog post on the etymology and extracts of the novel–discussing whales as something more than objects under capitalism, but animals that are cleverly invested under the nation– because as Ishmael tries to not ‘lay his treasures on earth’ as captain Peleg does, there is the unfortunate tragedy hidden in these chapters where he still tries to define his individuality under earthly status and approval of nobility. The next chapters–26 and 27– provide more insight into the sailors, almost dictating them under pawn status of the king. ‘Seasoning them for their designated functions’ adds to the sailor’s pawn role, subjecting them to merely surpress their emotions and complexities as humans in order to guarantee whaling success out in the seas. The chapters expose how their past trials and tribulations desensitized their emotions, reverting back to how the text also “anoints machinery with oil”, interestingly connecting to how the men on the ship become machinery that is already used to the difficult circumstances on the ship.
Moby-Dick
ECL 522: Fall 2025. Professor Pressman
You’re getting far more skilled at close reading, as you are grounding your insights in the text itself. I now would like to see you push some of your claims to arguments. For example, you write, “interestingly connecting to how the men on the ship become machinery that is already used to the difficult circumstances on the ship.” Great point– why does this matter? Why is the novel suggesting this, do you think?
The very fact that Ishmael has to advocate for the whaling industry as a whole shows us how it has largely gone unnoticed and unappreciated even though it was such a vital industry to our growth. Someone in class mentioned that these whalers were the sort of “middlemen” during the time, the ones who did the dirty work to supply the resources, like oil, which everyone used. They are the necessary machinery to keep the country going but they don’t receive the status or prestige that one would expect, a constant trend throughout our country’s history, especially during the time Melville wrote this. This could even go a layer further into the caste of the Pequod and how the shipmates Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask are given the title of “Knights” and will earn more while their “Squires” and the rest of the crew, not American born but the main source of labor, will receive less fame and fortune.