Moby-Dick Ch. 64: Stubb's Supper

Summary

Stubb's whale is killed far from the Pequod. Three boats link together and tow the huge body back through calm water. The work is slow. Eighteen men pull for hours and the corpse barely moves.

Darkness falls. Ahab orders the whale moored to the ship for the night. Chains rattle through the port-holes. The dead whale and the Pequod lie side by side like two giant oxen in the dark. Ahab looks at the body, then goes to his cabin. He seems unhappy. This kill does not bring him closer to Moby Dick.

Stubb is in a good mood. He loves whale meat. Around midnight he orders a steak cut from the whale and cooked. He eats at the capstan by lantern light.

Thousands of sharks swarm the dead whale. They slap the ship's hull and tear off huge chunks of blubber. Sleepers below can hear them right outside the planks.

Stubb tells the old Black cook, Fleece, to preach to the sharks and make them quiet. Fleece limps out with a lantern and tells the sharks to stop their noise and share the whale fairly. He says they should govern their greedy nature.

Stubb praises that as Christianity, but the sharks keep feeding. Fleece gives up and curses them to eat until they burst and die.

Then Stubb bullies Fleece for fun. He questions his age, birthplace, cooking, and heaven. He orders Fleece to be born again so he can learn to cook whale steak. He piles on more orders: cutlets, pickled fin tips, soused flukes, whale-balls for breakfast.

Fleece obeys in public. Walking away, he mutters that Stubb is more of a shark than the sharks.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Reading Downhill Cruelty

Wins upstairs do not stop sport downstairs. Ahab moors the whale and sulks while Stubb feasts and makes old Fleece preach manners to sharks that share more honestly than the mate.

When someone with middling power summons you mid-meal for a performance, ask who disappointed them before they found you.

Coming Up in Chapter 65

Next: The Whale as a Dish. Ishmael explores eating the creature that lights your lamp, from French tongue to cannibal logic and bone knife handles.

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Original text

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Chapter 64

Stubb's Supper

Stubb’s Supper. Stubb’s whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever…

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Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Spot the Supper Tyrant

Describe a celebration that included someone else's humiliation. Who had power? Who embedded resistance?

Consider:

•What was the steak?
•Who were the sharks?
•What was the private curse?

Journaling Prompt

Write about obeying in public while telling the truth in private.

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Stubb's Supper

Summary