There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke. – Bob Dylan, “All Along the Watchtower” (1967) I think my favorite character in Moby-Dick may be the second mate, Stubb. Starbuck, the first mate, is sensible and earnest. Flask, the third mate, is pugnacious and florid. Captain Ahab is . . . well, very focused. Ishmael, as a good gothic narrator, is by turns curious, horrified, and awestruck. But Stubb? Dude don’t take nothing seriously. Including annihilation. Ishmael describes him thusly: A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whale-boat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests. . . . When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer. Substitute “climate chaos” or “total social breakdown” for “whale,” and you’ll see where I’m going with this. . . . Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner. Ishmael attributes Stubb’s good humor to his pipe-smoking, as he (Ishmael) can see no other cause for it. Stubb is fond of improvising little ditties in the most inappropriate situations: “He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster.” In one scene, the Pequod sails into a typhoon – or the typhoon sails into it. The canvas sails are torn, and the masts are stripped. Things are looking pretty dire, from Mr. Starbuck’s POV. But Stubb? Not so much. “Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck,” said Stubb, regarding the wreck, “but the sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can’t fight it. You see, Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start before it leaps, all round the world it runs, and then comes the spring! But as for me, all the start I have to meet it, is just across the deck here. But never mind; it’s all in fun: so the old song says;”—(sings.) Oh! jolly is the gale, And a joker is the whale, A’ flourishin’ his tail,-- Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh! The scud all a flyin’, That’s his flip only foamin’; When he stirs in the spicin’,-- Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh! Thunder splits the ships, But he only smacks his lips, A tastin’ of this flip,-- Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh! “Avast Stubb,” cried Starbuck, “let the Typhoon sing, and strike his harp here in our rigging; but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold thy peace.” "But I am not a brave man; never said I was a brave man; I am a coward; and I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell you what it is, Mr. Starbuck, there’s no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my throat. And when that’s done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a wind-up.” Indeed, when the tips of the bare masts light up with St. Elmo’s fire, Stubb quails along with the rest of them. But up to that point, he retains his good humor. And why not? He accepts that there’s nothing he can do. To a large extent, we can't fight climate change, either. A lot of future heavy weather is already programmed into the system by the last 30 year’s-worth of greenhouse-gas emissions – and there’s good reason to believe the heating of the planet thus far has triggered feedback loops (e.g., release of frozen methane and CO2 in the oceans and permafrost, creating more heating). This is leaving aside the issue of whether the human brain is capable of solving global problems. Nonetheless, we feel the need to fight it - to do otherwise would be - well, not brave. But Stubb just takes it as it comes. Oh, he does what needs doing in the moment – he’s very particular about how his whale-boat is rigged-out and arranged, he keeps his harpoon as sharp as anyone else, and he hunts whales with the best of them. But he doesn’t let it faze him. "The sea will have its way." Now there’s the way to face the strongest of hurricanes and the highest of king tides! However, when it's a human doing the fighting, it's a different story. When Capn. Ahab calls Stubb a “dog,” Stubb talks back – and lives to tell the tale: “I will not tamely be called a dog, sir.” “Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or I’ll clear the world of thee!” As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated. “I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,” muttered Stubb . . . But he backs down: even as Ahab’s mad obsession becomes ever more oppressive and deadly to the crew, there is no mutiny. Christian is too law-abiding. And Stubb . . . well, Stubb don’t give a shit. He’d just as soon sink as swim. The source of his “courage” in the above encounter is the same as that of his nonchalance and lack of motivation in others: I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! Stubb plays the Fool to Ahab’s Lear: the second mate is the court jester, telling it like it is by pointing out the irony of it all. His very life is a satire, and he’s the only one laughing – la de da. O to be Stubb, in this era of continuous, seemingly-intractable, environmental calamity! (It is worth noting, however, that Stubb does indeed go down with the ship – along with everybody else. Except for Ishmael, the researcher-writer, who lives to tell the tale – though how much longer than that, we are not told.) But my wish to be a Stubb proves I’m not. Maybe a Mr. Starbuck, trying to urge those in authority to avert disaster (and being ignored). Or Maybe an Ahab – obsessed by a whale of a problem.
2 Comments
Beth
3/10/2020 07:12:16 pm
Yes, Stubb probably had a jollier time aboard the Pequod than anyone else. He knew how to laugh and did not, to my knowledge, laugh at anyone (although he may chuckled behind Ahab's back in a conversation with Flask). He knew how to do his job and to do it well, and probably the boys in his boat enjoyed themselves. Melville gets "the good old boy just right" when he gives us Stubb.
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Haskell
3/15/2020 01:35:20 pm
Stubb has a jollier time because "think not" is his "eleventh commandment." So he says. But he thinks enough to make jolly meaning of profound matters. He thinks/feels his way partly through some mysteries, but always swerves, unlike Joe, into a joke. A more complex character than some may take him to be, Stubb can be cruel too: more shark than the sharks, says Fleece. What a combo!---a thoughtless, jolly killer who refuses to consider the meaning of meaning. Aren't there too many such around and about today, refusing to consider their relation to our eco-chaos?
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Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |