- description
- # Chapter 25: Postscript
## Overview
This entity is Chapter 25 of the novel [Moby Dick; Or, The Whale](arke:01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D), titled "Postscript." It is a short, reflective chapter consisting of 33 lines of text, extracted from the source file `moby-dick.txt`. The chapter appears near the beginning of the novel, following [Chapter 24](arke:01KFNR84E5QTCH1DXXJAMQAJ8E) and preceding [Chapter 26](arke:01KFNR84D74WTRW5EZ09NBH2JH).
## Context
As part of [Moby Dick; Or, The Whale](arke:01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D), this chapter belongs to a larger literary work authored by Herman Melville, first published in 1851. The novel explores themes of obsession, fate, and the human relationship with nature through the story of Captain Ahab’s pursuit of the white whale, Moby Dick. This particular chapter is situated within the early expository section of the book, where the narrator, Ishmael, reflects on the dignity and cultural significance of whaling.
## Contents
In "Postscript," the narrator adopts a rhetorical and philosophical tone, drawing a surprising parallel between the coronation rituals of monarchs and the whaling industry. He questions what type of oil is used to anoint kings and queens during their coronation, rejecting common oils such as olive, macassar, or bear’s oil. He concludes with a bold and ironic suggestion: that the sacred oil must be sperm oil—unrefined, pure, and derived from the sperm whale. The chapter culminates in a triumphant address to British readers: “Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff!” This satirical elevation of whaling underscores the novel’s recurring theme of the nobility and grandeur of the whaling profession, positioning whalemen as unseen pillars of national tradition and dignity.
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- description_title
- Chapter 25: Postscript
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- 4961
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- 2026-01-23T15:40:57.867Z
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CHAPTER 25. Postscript.
In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but
substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who
should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell
eloquently upon his cause—such an advocate, would he not be
blameworthy?
It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even
modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their
functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called,
and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt,
precisely—who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king’s head is
solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be,
though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run
well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here,
concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in
common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints
his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man
who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a
quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can’t amount to
much in his totality.
But the only thing to be considered here, is this—what kind of oil is
used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar
oil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil.
What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured,
unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?
Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and
queens with coronation stuff!
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