Journal 3

Lucas Lorimer                                  Ch. 52-80 July 30(day written), 2019 Journal #3

            Throughout this third section we see a lot of action. Whales are killed, and harpoons are thrown and throughout all this violence there are parts that have made me feel sick but none of them were as disgusting or as philosophically captivating as the one about sharks.

            I guess I just find sharks more attractive than whales but the chapter that discusses the violence of the sharks as they eat away at the lifeless body of the whale was one of the coolest chapters in the book. The whale has just been killed and it has been attached to the side of the boat. Stubb tells the negro cook to hack a piece of flesh off the whale and cook it for him. This in and of itself is already disgusting in my opinion.

            Then we see that there are “millions” of sharks biting human head sized chunks out of the whale. Once the meat has been cooked and prepared for stubb he tells the cook that he is not happy with his meal because it has been overdone and he prefers it tough the way the sharks eat it. And this is where things get interesting because Stubb tells the cook to tell the sharks to shut up because they are making a racket while eating the whale slapping their fins against the side of the boat in the middle of the night.

            I have never heard of people preaching to sharks and I can only assume that this a way of Stubb being derogatory to the cook since he is black. Stubb then preaches to the sharks and Melville shows us once more the racism of the time. I do not know if Melville was a racist or if he is simply making fun of the racists but when the cook starts preaching to the sharks he uses swear words. Then Stubb trying to tell him to stop swearing uses swear words at the same time.

            Even more interesting is the content of the sermon preached to the sharks by the cook. He says that he does not blame the sharks for being so violent since it is in their nature but that if they can govern the inner shark in them they can be angels for angels are nothing more than sharks well governed. This reminds me of the Christian faith and I think that this a jibe at the Christians who preach that everyone has sin in them but what we must do is govern our sinful nature.

            The sermon ends with the cook saying that its no use preaching to the sharks because they will continue being violent and eating until they are satisfied but they can never be satisfied. This again reminds me of the Christian faith where the Christians say non-christians will continue trying to satisfy the sinful desires of the flesh but that those desires can never be satisfied.