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# Chapter 38: Dusk ## Overview This entity is **Chapter 38** of the novel *Moby Dick; Or, The Whale* (arke:01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D), titled "Dusk." It is a dramatic soliloquy delivered by the character Starbuck, first mate of the whaling ship *Pequod*. The chapter appears near the beginning of the narrative, following Chapter 37 ("Sunset") and preceding Chapter 39 ("First Night-Watch"). Structurally, it is part of the larger literary work archived within the [Moby Dick](arke:01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV) collection. ## Context The chapter is situated within the psychological and thematic buildup of Herman Melville’s 1851 novel. It directly follows Captain Ahab’s intense soliloquy in Chapter 37, where Ahab declares his monomaniacal vendetta against the white whale. Chapter 38 offers a counterpoint through Starbuck, whose moral conscience and internal conflict contrast sharply with Ahab’s fanaticism. This juxtaposition underscores the novel’s exploration of leadership, duty, madness, and fate. The chapter is set on deck at twilight, reinforcing its meditative and somber tone. ## Contents In this introspective scene, Starbuck leans against the mainmast and laments his position as second-in-command to Ahab, whom he views as a madman. He expresses anguish over being compelled to obey a man whose quest is both blasphemous and self-destructive. Starbuck feels spiritually overpowered, describing how Ahab has “blasted all my reason out of me” and bound him with an inescapable, knife-proof cable. Though he hates Ahab’s mission, he admits a touch of pity, sensing a deep sorrow in the captain that could destroy him. Starbuck also despairs at the crew’s fanaticism—their “infernal orgies” celebrating the whale as a “demigorgon”—while he stands in silent opposition. The chapter closes with a cry for divine strength to resist the “latent horror” he perceives in life itself, vowing to fight against grim, phantom-like futures with the remnants of his humanity.

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2026-01-23T15:45:22.728Z

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Chapter 38: Dusk

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2026-01-23T15:40:57.873Z

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CHAPTER 38. Dusk. _By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it_. My soul is more than matched; she’s overmanned; and by a madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who’s over him, he cries;—aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,—to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole clock’s run down; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to lift again. [_A burst of revelry from the forecastle_.] Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The white whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictures life. Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! ’tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,—as wild, untutored things are forced to feed—Oh, life! ’tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but ’tis not me! that horror’s out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!

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