The Carpenter — Moby-Dick

Ishmael says that if you look at one man alone from far away, he seems grand. But crowds of people look like copies of each other. The Pequod carpenter is different. He is humble and not a philosopher, but he is no duplicate. He now steps onto the stage in person.

Like all whaling ship carpenters, he can do many jobs. His main workplace is a heavy table with vices lashed near the try-works. There he files a belaying pin that is too big for its hole. He builds a pagoda cage for a stray bird from whale bone. He makes a lotion for a sprained wrist. He paints red stars on Stubb's oars. He drills a sailor's ears for shark-bone earrings. When a man has a toothache, he even points to his wooden vice and tells the sailor to clamp his jaw in it.

The carpenter treats teeth as scraps of ivory and men as ship capstans. He is not warmly intelligent but strangely calm and half-heartless, with dry old humor. Ishmael says his brain drained into his fingers long ago. He works like a pocket knife with many tools inside. Still, something keeps him muttering to himself like a guard in a sentry box, talking just to stay awake through the night.