When describing how Stubb eats a whale steak, Melville uses logos to highlight the hypocrisy of the anticipated outrage of the reader. In a direct address to the reader, Melville uses reason to demonstrate how even the readers probably engage in similar acts without scrutiny. He writes:
But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is that handle made of?—what but the bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating? [...] And with what quill did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two that that society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens.
Melville’s use of humor emphasizes the many ironies present in society, with the examples he gives providing a satirical commentary on the many hypocrisies of man. The use of rhetorical questions is an effective way of Melville presenting his argument, ultimately forcing readers to engage their own faculties of reason in a way that demonstrates the logic that guides his own conclusion.
There is also perhaps a further silent implication in this passage, reflected in Melville’s emphasis on the suggested indictment of Stubb for eating the whale “by its own light” (that is, by the light of lamps that burn whale oil). Here, the reference to the light is important, as it possibly winks at the fact that people reading Moby-Dick when it first came out probably read it by the light of a sperm oil lamp. Melville’s use of logos thus effectively forces readers to dissect their own instincts towards judgement by exposing their own hypocrisies.
