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Richard Parker
The first mate is the second-in-command of the Grampus and the leader of the mutiny against Mr. Barnard, and the main advocate for the mutineers turning to piracy. A capricious personality and heavy drinker, the mate leads the mutiny in part because of personal gripes with the captain. He is also typically superstitious, and he faints at the sight of Pym disguised as the body or ghost of another dead sailor—possibly from fear, but also possibly from guilt, as Peters suspects the mate poisoned that sailor.
The First Mate Quotes in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket quotes below are all either spoken by The First Mate or refer to The First Mate. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 7 Quotes
By good fortune I at length hit upon the idea of working upon the superstitious terrors and guilty conscience of the mate. It will be remembered that one of the crew, Hartman Rogers, had died during the morning, having been attacked two days before with spasms after drinking some spirits and water. Peters had expressed to us his opinion that this man had been poisoned by the mate, and for this belief he had reasons, so he said, which were incontrovertible, but which he could not be prevailed upon to explain to us—this wayward refusal being only in keeping with other points of his singular character. But whether or not he had any better grounds for suspecting the mate than we had ourselves, we were easily led to fall in with his suspicion, and determined to act accordingly.
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The First Mate Character Timeline in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The timeline below shows where the character The First Mate appears in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...a mutiny (an uprising onboard a ship) has taken place. The nine mutineers, led by the first mate and the cook, who is Black, take weapons from the cabin and go out on...
(full context)
Chapter 5
...about their plans for piracy, although they are fiercely divided over how to do it. The first mate and his supporters want to pirate vessels in the Caribbean, while the cook and Peters...
(full context)
Chapter 6
Peters, the first mate , and the cook visit Augustus again. Pym eavesdrops on their drunken conversation about piracy....
(full context)
...South Pacific. One of the mutineers is thrown overboard after an argument; the mutineers supporting the first mate ’s plan start to win over the crew. The Grampus sails into a large storm...
(full context)
Chapter 7
Another crew member dies, and Peters suspects that the mate poisoned him. The cook switches sides, now agreeing to pursue piracy. Peters decides to take...
(full context)
Augustus, Pym, and Peters recall that the body of the recently deceased mutineer—possibly poisoned by the mate —is still on board, bloated beyond recognition; the crew didn’t finish throwing him overboard because...
(full context)
Chapter 8
...door for Peters’s signal. Peters talks to the mutineers about guilt and ghosts, much to the first mate ’s agitation, leading the conversation toward the bloated corpse. He suggests they throw the body...
(full context)
