Oh yeah, there is comedic relief in here. Like any good book, Moby-Dick has comedic relief to cheer up the audience. Comedic relief is abundant. Okay, get the picture? I'm talking about comedic relief. After gruesomely describing the death and blood fountain of the "majestic" whale, Melville feels the need to cheer his audience up.
"How?! Where?! Why?!"you may scream at the screen. How can such a arduous -- indeed tedious -- novel possibly contain such a line to make me consider laughing? Tell you, I will. It occurs in Chapter 64- Stubb's Supper. Let us turn to page 320. Here we are introduced to the cook, Fleece, an extremely old and rather grouchy black servant. (Blog Author's Side Note: servant is most likely not the correct term, however repeating "cook" or its synonyms is redundant. Correct me if you so wish.) Stubb, giddy with the success of killing a freakin' whale, decides to screw with the poor man. Example A:
“Cook,” said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his mouth, “don’t you think this steak is rather overdone? You’ve been beating this steak too much, cook; it’s too tender. Don’t I always say that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharks now over the side, don’t you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to ’em; tell ’em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and deliver my message. Here, take this lantern,” snatching one from his sideboard; “now then, go and preach to them!”
TL;DR: Stubb says the steak is too tender, and tells Fleece to preach to the ravenous sharks below.
The comedy is in the way Fleece preaches to the completely cognizant, English-speaking sharks below. He speaks as thus: “Your woraciousness, fellow-critters. I don’t blame ye so much for; dat is natur, and can’t be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred’ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale."
Basically say the dialogue out loud how it is spelled. You'll eventually get the dialect. I thought this was comedic relief as the cook, in me brain, sounds like this guy (start at 3:07) combined with this fella. Thus, Melville sufficiently brought me, the audience, back to happy land before delving into even darker parts of the book.
Any comments, questions, criticisms, or divine praise can be placed in the comment section.
*TL;DR: The cook, Fleece, is hilarious and preaches to sharks. He sounds like Mr. Smee and Oscar the Grouch. Thus, alleviating the effect of the gory mess we just read about.
** TL; DR means Too Long; Didn't Read. It summarizes that passage
***Now that I think of it, Captain Hook is a bit like Captain Ahab.
****Just in case, I apologize in advance for the informality. But it is a blog, which shouldn't be that formal.
I find it rather remarkable that no one commented on a post such as this, but alas I will do so. I think this is a pretty nice comparison, and I do find it interesting that Ahab can also be compared with Captain Hook. One thing that stood out to me in this seen was the very noticeable divide in social classes. When Fleece addresses the sharks he does so by calling them his "fellow-critters." However, this also makes Stubb look really bad. Fleece notes that the sharks are acting on instinct, or doing what comes naturally to them. So, what does this say about Stubb's behavior? I think this scene is funny, no doubt. But, I also think there is more to it than just comic relief. I really loved your Mr. Smee, Oscar the Grouch comparsion though.
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