Plot Summary
As the Pequod sails southward past the ice and into the warm tropical latitudes, Captain Ahab grows increasingly restless and spends nearly all his waking hours on deck. He compares descending to his cabin to "going down into one's tomb," revealing both his sleeplessness and his psychological torment. At night, when the crew on deck moves quietly to avoid disturbing those sleeping below, Ahab typically avoids pacing the quarter-deck because the crack of his ivory leg on the planks would shatter the peace of the mates sleeping just beneath.
One night, however, Ahab's inner turmoil overpowers his consideration for others, and he begins pacing heavily from taffrail to mainmast. Stubb, the second mate, comes up from below and hesitatingly suggests that Ahab might muffle his ivory heel with a globe of tow. Ahab responds with sudden, violent contempt, calling Stubb a dog and ordering him to "kennel." When Stubb protests that he is not accustomed to such treatment, Ahab escalates his insults, calling him "ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass," and advances threateningly until Stubb retreats below deck.
The chapter concludes with Stubb's extended soliloquy as he descends to his berth, in which he vacillates between anger at the insult, a strange impulse to pray for Ahab, and bewildered fear. He reflects on Ahab's sleeplessness, his mysterious nighttime visits to the after hold, and the steward Dough-Boy's reports of Ahab's violently tossed bedding. Stubb ultimately resolves to stop thinking about it all—"Think not, is my eleventh commandment"—and falls asleep.
Character Development
Ahab is revealed as a man consumed by inner forces that override his humanity. Though he shows "some considering touch of humanity" by normally avoiding the quarter-deck at night, his obsession occasionally overwhelms his restraint, as it does in this chapter. His explosive anger toward Stubb—disproportionate to Stubb's modest request—demonstrates how his monomania is eroding his capacity for normal human interaction. His Shakespearean language ("Below to thy nightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds") elevates his speech to tragic-heroic registers.
Stubb emerges as the common sailor who cannot fathom the depths of Ahab's torment. His soliloquy reveals a practical, good-humored man confronted with something beyond his understanding. His impulse to pray for Ahab rather than strike him suggests an instinctive recognition of Ahab's suffering, even as he lacks the vocabulary to name it.
Themes and Motifs
The chapter develops the theme of obsession and isolation, showing how Ahab's fixation separates him from the social world of the ship. Sleep and wakefulness function as a motif: Ahab cannot sleep, while Stubb's philosophy is to sleep whenever possible—two opposed responses to the mystery of existence. The recurring imagery of death and burial—Ahab's cabin as a tomb, the crew sleeping "between shrouds," Stubb's berth as a "nightly grave"—foreshadows the doom that awaits the voyage.
Literary Devices
employs the dramatic convention of the soliloquy, borrowed from Shakespearean theater, in Stubb's extended interior monologue. The chapter title itself—"Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb"—uses stage directions as a heading, signaling the theatrical mode. The lavish metaphors comparing tropical days to "crystal goblets of Persian sherbet" and nights to "haughty dames in jewelled velvets" create an ironic contrast between the beauty of the external world and Ahab's inner darkness. Dramatic irony operates throughout: the reader senses what Stubb cannot fully articulate—that Ahab's "conscience" is in fact a monomaniacal obsession that will ultimately destroy them all.