Chapter 39 of Moby-Dick, titled "First Night-Watch," is a brief but revealing soliloquy delivered by Stubb, the second mate of the Pequod. The chapter is written in a dramatic, theatrical style—Stubb speaks alone on deck, mending a brace during the first night watch, which begins at eight in the evening. This short monologue is the third in a sequence of soliloquies (following Ahab in Chapter 37 and Starbuck in Chapter 38), each offering a distinct reaction to Ahab’s announcement that the voyage will be devoted to hunting the white whale.
Stubb’s response to the alarming turn of events is characteristically lighthearted. He opens with raucous laughter, declaring that a laugh is "the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer." Where Starbuck broods in moral anguish and Ahab seethes with obsessive vengeance, Stubb chooses amusement and fatalistic acceptance. He comforts himself with the belief that everything is "predestinated"—predetermined by fate—and therefore beyond his control or concern.
Stubb reveals that he has overheard part of Ahab’s conversation with Starbuck and has noticed that the first mate appeared shaken, much as Stubb himself felt after an earlier encounter with the captain. He refers to Ahab as "the old Mogul," a nickname that conveys both respect and wariness, acknowledging that Ahab has bent Starbuck to his will just as he dominates the rest of the crew. Stubb takes a certain sardonic satisfaction in recognizing this pattern.
Rather than resist or lament, Stubb declares he will face whatever comes with laughter. He senses something ominous—"such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles"—but refuses to dwell on it. Instead, he turns his thoughts briefly to his wife at home, imagining her either crying or throwing a party, and then breaks into a cheerful drinking song about love that is "gay and fleeting / As bubbles that swim, on the beaker’s brim."
The soliloquy ends abruptly when Starbuck calls for him. Stubb’s aside—noting that Starbuck is his superior and that Starbuck, too, answers to someone above him—reinforces the rigid hierarchy aboard the ship and Stubb’s acceptance of his place within it. This brief chapter illuminates Stubb’s philosophy of jovial fatalism, providing a striking contrast to the solemnity that surrounds him and underscoring one of Moby-Dick’s central themes: how individuals confront the unknown and the uncontrollable.