March 6, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Sharks flow in and around the Pequod for most of its journey. Ishmael often notes their presence rather casually. They are, of course, one of the many challenges involved in whaling. They hover at the periphery of the tale until Stubb, Ahab’s second mate, decides to feast on a recently harpooned whale. At this point in the story, the reader has met everyone except Moby Dick. The reader understands a little bit about Ahab’s eccentricities. The reader has experienced the first lowering and chase, has heard the lengthy tale of the Town-Ho, and has been introduced to a wide variety of whaling artifacts. But something special happens in chapter 64, “Stubb’s Supper”: Melville makes sharks of us all.
First, Stubb demands a chunk of whale meat. He orders the cook, Fleece, to prepare it. And although Stubb clearly enjoys it, he demands another while explaining, lecturing, proselytizing about the best way to prepare whale steak. While Stubb lectures, sharks swirl below in a raucous feast of smacking and slapping. Melville writes:
“Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. The few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp slapping of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the sleepers’ hearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (as before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and turning over on their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of the whale of the bigness of a human head.”
Melville’s incredibly accurate and observant description tells us that he definitely knows what a shark feast looks like. He also knows that Stubb, though human, is no different from the sharks below. Humans use finely gilded and decorated carving knives while sharks use their “jewel-hilted mouths,” but everyone feasts on flesh in a chaotic and macabre banquet. Melville even says that if the scene were upside down – picture humans below and sharks above – the results would be nearly the same. He calls it a “shocking sharkish business … for all parties.”
So, while Stubb feasts, sharks snatch and grab, slapping tails and nosing others out of their way. The star of the show – the whale suspended from the side of the ship – has been momentarily forgotten. Then, Stubb demands a sermon from the cook. He makes old Fleece preach to the sharks. So, Fleece dutifully but unwillingly tells the sharks to govern their natures for “if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned.” Fleece speaks more to Stubb than the sharks which is confirmed when Fleece whispers to himself that Stubb is more shark than the “Massa Shark” himself – by which he means Ahab. Melville wants us to ask ourselves: is man really different than beast?
In chapter 65, “The Whale as a Dish,” Ishmael offers bits of history about the practice of eating a whale. He says that landsmen mostly demean whalers because of their dirty habits. He notes that Stubb is a most “unprejudiced” (137B) man to lower himself to such standards. Melville also calls the whale an “uncivilised dish” concluding with:
“It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal?”
Man joins beast in this riotous feast. But Melville doesn’t really condemn Stubb for his unprejudiced ways, just as Melville doesn’t judge sharks for feasting on easy prey. Melville even questions the ethical standards of his own pen. In other words, Melville asks the question: what might a civilized civilization look like?
We will unpack the idea of civilization next week. Check back next Friday for part two of What Lurks Below Melville’s Whale: the Shark Chapters. *(This was part of a presentation for the 2026 Southwest/American Popular Culture Conference presented on February 27, 2026.)
Photo credit: Shutterstock/ Apolinariy
