술취한 크리스찬보다는 멀쩡힌 식인종이 낫겠지 - What Ishmael said in the movie Moby Dick, 1956

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술취한 크리스찬보다는 멀쩡힌 식인종이 낫겠지

A sober cannibal is better than a drunk Christian.

What Ishmael said in the movie Moby Dick


The famous original line from Chapter 3 of Herman Melville's novel is:

​"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."




You are thinking of a iconic line spoken by Ishmael (played by Richard Basehart) early on in the 1856 film adaptation of Moby Dick, directed by John Huston.

​The famous original line from Chapter 3 of Herman Melville's novel is:

​"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

​Context of the Line

​The Situation: Ishmael arrives at the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on a freezing cold night. The landlord informs him that the inn is completely full, so he will have to share a bed with a harpooneer who has not yet returned from selling shrunken heads.

​The Realization: When Ishmael hesitates to share a bed with a pagan stranger (Queequeg), he ponders the hypocrisy of civilized society and decides that a calm, sober "savage" makes a far safer and more honorable bedmate than a reckless, intoxicated member of his own culture.

​This moment sets the foundation for one of American literature's most famous friendships, as Ishmael and Queequeg quickly look past their cultural differences to form a deep bond of mutual respect.




배우 그레고리 펙이 에이해브 선장으로 열연한 영화 《백경(모비딕)》은 1956년 존 휴스턴 감독이 만든 위대한 모험 영화입니다. 허먼 멜빌의 소설을 바탕으로, 하얀 고래 모비딕을 향한 선장의 광기 어린 복수와 집념을 강렬하게 그려냈습니다.

영화 정보 및 출연진

원작: 허먼 멜빌의 1851년 소설 《모비딕》

감독: 존 휴스턴

주연: 그레고리 펙(에이해브 선장 역), 오슨 웰스 등

개봉 연도: 1956년주요 줄거리 및 특징복수심: 에이해브 선장은 과거 흰 고래 모비딕 때문에 한쪽 다리를 잃습니다.

광기: 선장은 고래를 잡으려고 배를 타고 나가서 끝없는 추적을 시작합니다.

명연기: 그레고리 펙은 선장의 무서운 집념을 잘 표현해 큰 찬사를 받았습니다.

그레고리 펙이 에이해브 선장 역할을 맡게 된 비화와 제작 뒷이야기를 전하는 영상입니다:



https://youtu.be/xAnm1tDxsIA?si=YDP-ru-IxE5S2_5V

[last lines]

Ishmael: [voiceover] The coffin. Drowned Queequeg's coffin was my life buoy. For one whole day and night , it sustained me on that soft and dirge-like main. Then, a sail appeared; It was the Rachel. The Rachel who in her long melancholy search for her missing children found... another orphan. The drama's done. All are departed away. The great shroud of the sea rolls over the Pequod, her crew, and Moby Dick. I only am escaped... alone, to tell thee.



MOBY DICK

A monologue from the novel by Herman Melville

NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Moby Dick; or, the Whale. Herman Melville. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851.



ISHMAEL: Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.


With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick--grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;--no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;--though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honour, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time. What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about--however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content. And more importantly, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING PAID,--what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!






5 Quotes from Moby Dick I Would Have Tattooed over My Heart


Why this remarkably poetical book calls to be consecrated in ink



I recently finished a queer reading of Moby Dick by Herman Melville wherein I expected to cobble together an argument for homosexuality based on vague symbolism and subtext. Instead, I found that scholarly whaler Ishmael really won’t shut up about his hot tattooed husband Queequeg.

That’s not what we’re here to talk about right now. We’re here to talk about a list of quotes from Moby Dick I would happily have tattooed onto my body, and why.

Spoiler policy: non-critical spoilers ahead. Selected events are described in some detail to give context to the quotes.

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source: unsplash
Source: Unsplash
1. True to each other when heaven seemed false to them
“True to each other when heaven seemed false to them” — Ahab, Chapter 70

It is absolutely wild to me that one of the most romantic lines in the entire book is spoken by Captain “Lemme Stab that Whale” Ahab his ownself. And yet in chapter 70 the monomaniacal (Melville’s descriptor, not mine) monarch of the Pequod stomps around his ship and stops to demand that the severed head of a leviathan speak to him. He conjures up images of what the living whale might have seen as it dived the depths of the restless seas, accusing the animal of witnessing murdered officers cast overboard, sleeping by the side of sunken sailors and shipwrecks alike, and:

Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.

The imagery is strong and immersive, and there’s an excellent callback to it a few chapters later when Ishmael and Queequeg are literally tied together in a dangerous task. Ishmael reflects that if a mishap happens, both of them will sink and die together like the “locked lovers”.

The motif of weddings and wedding vows follows our protagonist and his husband-friend right through the book, and this particular reference stands out. It is a macabre testimony to the endurance of love even unto death, and terribly, achingly romantic.

Would tattoo over my heart if I had a beloved mad enough to match it.

2. Faith, like a jackal, feeds
“Faith, like a jackal, feeds” — Ishmael, Chapter 7

The scene: our protagonist Ishmael enters a church before his voyage, notices Queequeg sitting in the pews, and reads the epitaphs on the walls honoring whalers that died at sea. He looks around at the faces of the bereaved and thinks that there is a deeper note of grief here from those that can only point to the waters as their loved ones' final resting place.

Ishmael reflects, a little wryly, on how people will grieve death even if they believe the dead are in a better place. The chapter reads as a call to the metaphysical over the material, as Ishmael moves from looking at earthly suffering to thinking of his immortal soul.

But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

Fine, thinks our protagonist, if I die, I die.

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Faith gives Ishmael the tools to remove himself from a gloomy precipice in favor of a more protective stance. He combats his anxiety by making peace with the idea that he may perish on this whaling voyage, and he’s going to sail anyway.

And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.

His attitude embodies a material detachment and an utter disregard for personal safety that I cannot help but admire. Would get this tattoo when I’m knee-deep in a depressive episode to remind myself that hope can live on scraps until better food is found.

3. The sea will insult and murder him
“The sea will insult and murder him” — Ishmael, Chapter 58



Every so often in the course of the narrative, Ishmael takes us on a philosophical vacation over various topics, often striding from thought to thought with a giant’s gait. On one memorable occasion he rhapsodizes about the sea and the respect we owe it and the primal fear it commands.

a moment’s consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make;

This perhaps doesn’t require much elucidation. If you have ever looked upon the ocean, you know what he means. The twin horror and fascination held by an alien habitat is older than our species.

Would get this tattoo when the overwhelming infinity of my own infinitesimal existence has smacked me in the face.

4. Catskill eagle in some souls

“…Catskill eagle in some souls…” — Ishmael, Chapter 96

The bulk of this chapter gives off the aura of hysterical self-denial: Ishmael is watching the three pagan harpooners work fiery machinery on deck when he should be focusing on manning the helm. For reasons that I cannot legally say have anything to do with watching his hot tattooed husband getting all sweaty by a furnace, he becomes a little distracted and has a small disconnect with his perception of the ship that devolves into a sermon warning against the ecclesiastical dangers of looking too long at a fire.

At the end of the chapter, as he regains his equilibrium, Ishmael proposes that

there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

Ishmael may pretend to be a severe and unhappy preacher in the preceding text, but he concludes on this strangely uplifting note. Although it seems apropos of nothing, it comes to mind in a later chapter when Queequeg is remarked on having “higher and holier” thoughts than anyone else.

Would get this tattoo in a fit of unusually high self-esteem.

5. The Whiteness of the Whale
“The whiteness of the whale” — Title, Chapter 42

If you read nothing else of Moby Dick but this one chapter, it would be sufficient to enrich your soul. It is the core and heart of the book, and you needn’t take my word for it:

I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught.

Ishmael in Chapter 42 pauses the story, as he often does, to write what is essentially a prose poem expounding on all the good things that are white in color, and then lists all the bad things that are white in color. It is my belief that this is inherently radical because of how irrevocably tied to “good” things the color white is, and how darkness is synonymous with an incorrect and inferior state of being in not only contemporary writing, but in a legacy of prejudice that endures to this day.

The whiteness of the whale quietly realigns your expectations in a way that will be revisited a short chapter later when Ahab himself is described in terms of light. It is a difficult chapter to digest, with racist ideology sitting side by side with high ideals and wrapped entirely in some of the loveliest language I have ever had the pleasure to read.

Would get this tattooed right over my heart for the deep symbolism as well as the sheer aesthetic.


Moby Dick by Herman Melville is a book with as many layers as the reader cares to see, and Ishmael as a narrator too is as literal as you want him to be. While there is an element of hyperbole to the title of this article the sentiment stands strong: these lines and more are invisibly scrawled over my heart and they will remain there for a very long time.

Have radically different takes on these quotes? Disagree with my analysis? Have better tattoo ideas? Drop them in the comment section, as Ahab dropped a single precious tear into the sea.