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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