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Chapter 28
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Moby-Dick, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Limits of Knowledge
Fate and Free Will
Nature and Man
Race, Fellowship, and Enslavement
Madness
Religion
Summary
Analysis
Ahab often walks the quarterdeck at night, when only the night-watch sailors are about, since he cannot sleep well in the evenings. The Pequod is drawing toward the Equator and Quito (capital of Ecuador), and the night-air has turned warmer and more pleasant. As Ahab paces the quarterdeck, his ivory leg scrapes against the wood and often wakes the sailors. But when Stubb goes above to tell Ahab, gently, that this is the case, Ahab curses him, calls him a dog, and tells him to “sleep in his grave” below the deck. Stubb takes umbrage at being called a dog, but Ahab again shouts him down, and Stubb retreats to the belowdecks.
One of the under-heralded aspects of the novel is its humor, and in this instance, the reader is reminded that Ahab’s peg-leg would naturally cause the wood to resound below decks as he paces in the night. Stubb appears the best suited, of the three mates, for speaking to Ahab, since Stubb does not feel it necessary to amend his statements in order to please the captain. Yet Stubb is no match for Ahab.
Active
Themes
Quiz
Test Yourself
Stubb, talking to himself as he walks back to sleep, says that Ahab is the strangest captain he has ever seen. Stubb also repeats what another sailor has told him: that Ahab’s bunk is often disturbed the morning after he sleeps, indicating that Ahab tosses and turns the whole night long. Stubb wonders what must be wrong with the old man, and vows to find out at some point during the voyage.
