148:– "the land seemed scorching to his feet". Ishmael sees a parallel and a paradox: A favorable wind drives a ship toward the warmth and safety of its home port, but when a gale drives it to destruction on the shore, the ship must avoid the seeming warmth and safety of home to put on all sail to seek safety in the "landless sea". Bulkington, says Ishmael, should recognize that, likewise, the soul must keep to the "open independence" of her sea. "But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God – so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!" Ishmael foretells Bulkington's death by drowning: "Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing – straight up, leaps thy
244:, he took Bulkington's role as Ishmael's companion, or "sleeping partner". His implied role as "truth-seeker" was given to Starbuck. Hayford offers no guess for why Melville did not remove Bulkington entirely, "beyond the humdrum one that Melville, like lesser writers, found it hard to throw away good words he had written".
201:
Critics have long speculated that
Bulkington was introduced in an early draft but was no longer needed when Melville changed his concept of the novel from a whaling adventure to a metaphysical tale focused on Ahab's quest. The second version needed a different sort of character to contrast with Ahab,
135:
one, so far as this narrative is concerned)", that he will give a "little description of him". Bulkington is tall, with "noble shoulders", muscular, with a face that is "deeply brown and burnt", while his voice indicates that he was a
Southerner. He slips away and is soon missed by his shipmates, who
232:
One critic speculates that
Melville chose not to revise chapter 3, "The Spouter-Inn", to remove Bulkington, but to add a chapter apotheosizing him as a character who, "though absent, represents his own artistic strivings for truth and independence of thought in the face of forces that would conspire
224:
can hardly be doubted". Delbanco argues that
Bulkington seems destined to play a major role in the book for he has "dignity, bearing, refinement", which make him Melville's first candidate to resist Ahab. Instead, Melville gives that role to a lesser man, Starbuck, who recognizes Ahab's madness but
139:
Bulkington does not appear again until
Chapter 23, "The Lee Shore", and does not appear after it. Ishmael calls the chapter the "stoneless grave of Bulkington", since in it he announces Bulkington will die, and, because it is so short, a "six inch chapter" (in fact, 361 words). Since Bulkington had
192:
postulated that
Bulkington was the novel's "true Promethean hero," but one who could not play an important role because such a hero would have to resist Ahab, the novel's "false" Prometheus. He must disappear because "if he had been more a part of the story it would have been inevitable that he
239:
speculates as part of a larger argument that
Bulkington is one of a group of "unnecessary duplicates", one who was left "vestigial" when Melville changed the relation between the characters. Hayford speculates that when Melville added the character
164:
writes that
Bulkington is a "natural aristocrat – an almost cartoonish paragon of manly virtue", the "democratic leader who commands respect out of trust and comradely love". Critics see resemblances to historical or mythological figures, such as
99:
Critics and scholars, however, have paid attention to his role. Some see
Bulkington as representing a historical or contemporary figure, or take his early appearance and then disappearance to bolster the theory that Melville
96:. Bulkington is referred to only by his last name and appears only twice, briefly in Chapter 3, "The Spouter Inn", and then in Chapter 23, "The Lee Shore", a short chapter of several hundred words devoted entirely to him.
130:
celebrate their return from three years at sea. Bulkington stands aloof but
Ishmael says "this man interested me at once; and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a
111:
is on the south side of the Flask Glacier and west of Bildad Peak, a series of features that the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-names Committee named after characters from
220:", says Delbanco, "is impossible since no manuscript or notes survive. But that he changed his ideas about who should lead and who should resist aboard the
193:
should do what Starbuck can only try to do: oppose the command of Ahab and save the ship". But he is also the heroic American, the "hope of the world".
225:
does not have Bulkington's strength to challenge him. "But why leave him in the book at all?", Delbanco asks. His own answer is that long before
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Bulkington's striking physical appearance and the poetic force and thematic resonance of Chapter 23 have intrigued critics.
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s first mate. Melville, some scholars speculate, then inserted Chapter 23 to explain Bulkington's disappearance.
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Scholars and critics offer other answers to the question of why he appeared so briefly. The literary critic
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173:(1775–1851), one of the many references in the novel to that painter of sea scenes and storms, and to
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just returned from four years at sea, Ishmael is amazed to see him standing at the helm of the
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Cowan, S. A. (1967). "In Praise of Self-Reliance: The Role of Bulkington in
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Sattelmeyer, Robert (2003). "'Shanties of Chapters and Essays': Rewriting
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185:" in the quest for truth, and the preference for philosophical realities.
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and Bulkington became unnecessary when Melville expanded his conception.
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544:: The Canon, the Cold War, and the Struggle for American Studies
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Morrell, Sascha (2017). "'The Town-Ho's Story,' Bulkington, and
380:. Kent State, OH: Kent State University Press. pp. 128–161.
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384:
Hayford, Harrison With a foreword by Hershel Parker (2003).
372:(1978). "Unnecessary Duplicates: A Key to the Writing of
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Hollister, Michael (1989), "Melville's Gam With Poe In
292:, Myth, and Classical Moralism: Bulkington as Hercules"
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In Chapter 3, "The Spouter Inn", the crew of the ship
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233:to cast him 'on the treacherous, slavish shore'".
388:. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
136:pursue him with cries of "Where's Bulkington?"
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547:, Duke University Press, pp. 154–155,
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510:ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance
177:. Chapter 23 may represent the virtues of
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563:"Bulkington, Turner, and the Lee Shore"
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439:s 'Darker Thread' of Labor Tension".
260:The Dream of the Great American Novel
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197:In Melville's process of composition
102:composed the novel in several stages
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308:10.1111/j.1750-1849.2003.tb00062.x
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279:Herman Melville: A Critical Study
202:a character who turned out to be
169:, the Greek god, or a tribute to
944:Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick
569:, Kent State University Press,
404:(New York: Norton, ): pp 39–63.
565:, in Sten, Christopher (ed.),
281:. New York: Macmillan Company.
277:Chase, Richard Volney (1949).
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1176:Male characters in literature
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1036:The Call of the Wretched Sea
352:Melville: His World and Work
561:Wallace, Robert W. (1991),
376:". In Pullin, Faith (ed.).
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1125:Green Shadows, White Whale
468:O’Hara, Robert J. (2016),
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16:Character from the novel
843:Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish
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537:Spanos, William (1995),
1171:Characters in Moby-Dick
1148:In the Heart of the Sea
1140:In the Heart of the Sea
596:U.S. Geological Survey
412:: Bulkington And Pym",
378:New Studies in Melville
286:Cook, Jonathan (2003),
53:In-universe information
936:Moby Dick - Rehearsed
522:10.1353/esq.2010.0030
490:10.1353/lvn.2016.0026
453:10.1353/lvn.2017.0012
414:Studies in the Novel
386:Melville's Prisoners
979:Moby Dick—Rehearsed
400:; Herman Melville,
354:. New York: Knopf.
328:American Literature
156:Critical discussion
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1120:(whaleship)
1071:Möbius Dick
853:Adaptations
628:Cook (2003)
447:(2): 1–21.
119:Appearances
74:Nationality
1165:Categories
1111:Mocha Dick
920:Television
797:Bulkington
764:Characters
678:, p.
614:, p.
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395:0810119730
361:0375403140
248:References
179:Emersonian
150:apotheosis
84:Bulkington
66:Occupation
43:Created by
28:Bulkington
1135:(TV film)
1132:The Whale
1064:Leviathan
1057:Dicky Moe
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316:144798023
296:Leviathan
290:Moby-Dick
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146:lee shore
113:Moby-Dick
93:Moby-Dick
38:character
35:Moby-Dick
18:Moby-Dick
838:Cetology
787:Queequeg
426:29532652
350:(2005).
257:(2014),
242:Queequeg
204:Starbuck
167:Hercules
77:American
1099:Related
1085:Railsea
782:Ishmael
616:146-148
340:2923460
127:Grampus
1151:(film)
1143:(book)
982:(1955)
963:(2011)
955:(1998)
947:(1997)
939:(1965)
931:(1954)
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69:Sailor
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1014:Other
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584:Notes
526:S2CID
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457:S2CID
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422:JSTOR
336:JSTOR
312:S2CID
227:Freud
211:'
861:Film
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125:USS
107:The
61:Male
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