The episodes describing Stubb's "supper" of whale-steak (yummmm), chapters 64-65: racial burlesque? It reminds me of an old black & white (pun suggested) comedy reel--Laurel & Hardy, maybe. Who's more comic, Stubb or Fleece? Why the backstory on Fleece?
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Or a black face stage show. Even down to the "yessa massa". Stubb commends Fleece, a savage born on a ferry boat (this image is almost more reminiscent of a Southern antebellum setting than a plantation) for speaking "gentlemanly" and correctly summing up the essence of Christianity (238). On 239 he tells Fleece to go be "born over again" and learn how to cook a whale-steak. Were Born-Agains around then? This line has quite a bit of resonance today.
Comedy has obviously changed in regards to race in the United States. I imagine Fleece was funnier in Melville's time, but today many would view Stubb's outright ignorance as more comic.
It's interesting that Fleece was born on a body of water. It's similar to Queequeg's story, how he was born in an island not down on any map (59). The other "cannibals" also seem to be from no place, which attributes to their "savagery".
Stubb repeatedly asks what country Fleece is from, suggesting a nation. Fleece takes this word as a region, stating Roanoke. Again, I think the comedic focus on this pun has reversed over time.
After reading this chapter (Stubb's "supper"), I initially read it as the first real instance of racial demarcation in the novel. Queequeg, Tash, and all the other non-white characters -- although portrayed as 'others', are never contrasted with the white characters like Fleece is with Stubb. I guess my first reading of the chapter weighed the prowess of the harpooners of color to that of the subordinate figure of Fleece in hopes of reading the “comic reel” Fleece and Stubb establish as hyper-racial. Having said this, I couldn't help but read the chapter as Stubb trying to exercise some authority in the face of his own limitations; i.e. in killing the whale Stubb reveals his prowess as a whaler, yet his authority is limited by the hierarchal authority of the ship.
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