The Hypocrisy of Religion in Moby Dick
Stubb decides to give Old Fleece a lecture on religion after waking him to complain about his overcooked whale steak. Not only does Stubb ask Fleece to "preach" to the sharks who are making a considerable din eating the dead whale chained to the ship, but he compares Fleece's inability to "correctly" cook a whale steak to Fleece's un-Christian ways. This passage is an excellent example of the theme of the hypocrisy of religion in Moby Dick.
Before Stubb calls on Fleece, Ishmael compares the actions of the shark to the actions of man. He first compares Stubb to the sharks: "Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on whale's flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness" (Melville ___). By comparing Stubb to a shark, Ishmael portrays him as beastly and uncivilized, two traits that contradict the Christianity he professes and ministers to Fleece. Two more references are made to solidify the comparison; Ishmael describes the "smacking" of Stubb's "epicurean lips," and Stubb himself says he prefers his whale steak the way the sharks prefer it.
Next, Ishmael alludes to the bond between sharks and man in general. "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" (___). This line poses contradiction; how can the tails of the sharks be within inches of the crew's hearts in the tails are slapping the hull of the ship, for the hull of a whaleboat would be much wider than a few inches. What Ishmael means when he says "within a few inches of the sleepers' hearts" is...
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...es of Stubb, he is being ordered to perform a number of tasks, including bowing to Stubb. Religion is nothing more than a hierarchy, where those in power are able to use others in the name of religion.
Fleece never shows any sign of relief or enjoyment at being a Christian now; in fact, he seems to have gone through the conversion just so Stubb would let him go to bed. As Fleece walks away from Stubb, he mutters to himself, "Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself" (___). This is the culmination of the scene, where Fleece spells out that sharks, savage beasts without religion, and Stubb, a cultured Christian, are quite similar. This makes Stubb a hypocrite, and his Christian belief system questionable.
Works Cited
Mellville, Herman. Moby Dick. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964.
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At first glance, Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, appears to be the story of a man, his captain, and the whale that they quest to destroy. But a closer look reveals the author’s intense look at several metaphysical ideologies. He explores some of the most ponderous quandaries of his time, among these being the existence of evil, knowledge of the self and the existential, and the possibility of a determined fate. All of these were questions which philosophers had dealt with and written about, but Melville took it to a new level: not only writing about these things, but also doing so in a lovely poetic language backed by a tale packed with intrigue. He explores the general existence of evil in his antagonist, the white whale, and through the general malice that nature presents to humans throughout the novel. The narrator, Ishmael, gains a lot of knowledge about himself through his experiences on the whaling voyage, where he also is able to learn much about the phenomenon of existence itself. Also, through Captain Ahab, he sees more about the existence of man and the things that exist within man’s heart. Especially through Ahab and his ongoing quest for the white whale, and also in general conversation amongst the whalers, the issue of fate and whether one’s destiny is predetermined are addressed in great detail, with much thought and insight interpolated from the author’s own viewpoints on the subject.
Since this bond of brotherhood is felt by all the men in the boat, but not discussed, it manifests in small ways as the men interact with each other. They are never irritated or upset with each other, no matter how tired or sore they are. Whenever one man is too tired to row, the next man takes over without complaining. When the correspondent thinks that he is the only person awake on the boat, and he sees and hears the shark in the water, the narrator says, “Nevertheless, it is true that he did not want to be alone with the thing. He wished one of his companions to awaken by chance and keep him company with it” (Crane 212).
The catalyst for the emergence of Christian symbolism occurs when the mariner commits a sin by murdering one of God’s creatures. By killing the albatross, he inevitably brings about a series of trials amongst himself and those aboard the ship. Though the significance of this sin is first unseen by the mariner, supernatural forces quickly condemn his actions as a severe crime against nature. With no real reason, the mariner kills the albatross and soon realizes the magnitude of his actions. Viewed beyond simply a good luck charm, “At length did cross an Albatross, Through the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God’s name” (ll. 63-6). The idea of the Albatross representing Jesus Christ is a direct parallel in the Christian religion. The death of the Albatross is reminiscent of the death of Jesus in that both died as a result of another’s sin and betrayal of God’s word. Similar accounts of betrayal are portrayed ...
One might say we are presented with two fish stories in looking at Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, a marlin in the former and a whale in the latter. However, both of these animals are symbolic of the struggle their hunters face to find dignity and meaning in the face of a nihilistic universe in Hemingway and a fatalistic one in Melville. While both men will be unable to conquer the forces of the universe against them, neither will either man be conquered by them because of their refusal to yield to these insurmountable forces. However, Santiago gains a measure of peace and understanding about existence from his struggles, while Ahab leaves the world as he found it without any greater insight.