Fleece prevails

In his different works, Samuel George Morton analyzes crania in order to get to the depth of human character. Through his measurements, says Otter in his chapter "Getting inside heads", Morton tries to prove that American Indians and African Americans are inferior races. This is racial science, Otter goes on to say, in which Morton upholds white supremacy by understanding intellectual character through physical characteristics.

Otter goes on to show how in Moby Dick, Melville raises questions about the ability of making dry bones speak. In the cetology chapters, Melville employs an ethnological discourse, but in a way that defamiliarizes the standard 19^th century system of corporeal inquiry. The anatomy chapters are part of Ishmael's attempt to fathom the whale, but simultaneously, the limits of such inquiry are exposed; it becomes evident that bodily knowledge can also disarticulate the object.

In the chapter "Stubb's supper", Melville leads the reader to view Fleece through Stubb's eyes. In our first encounter with him, we learn about his appearance:  an "old black" who "like many old blacks" has "something the matter with his knee-pans", a condition that makes him shuffle and limp. Through Stubb, we are led to view Fleece in the same manner that the "American school" read racial character in physical appearance.

Stubb who is "flushed with conquest" after killing the whale apparently wants to show the same superiority over Fleece, as he tells him that the noises the sharks are making are disturbing his dinner, and won’t Fleece "go and talk to the sharks"  because "they must keep quiet". Fleece has no choice but to cooperate, and we see him humiliated as he tries to reason with the sharks. But as Fleece continues with his pleas, the dynamics of the relationship change as Fleece, between the lines, demonstrates his intellectual superiority. He starts to philosophize and when he speaks about governing "dat wicked natur" we get the sense that he is talking about Stubb, not the sharks. We know he is not really trying to reason with the sharks, but is actually talking through them to Stubb. "If you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned." In this sense, the "wicked natur" of the white man can never be erased, only governed. He continues and says "none of you has de right to dat whale; dat whale belongs to someone else". Technically that "someone else" is Stubb, but is it really possible to own the whale in this narrative? Fleece knows it is impossible, and by saying "none of you", Stubb is included. "To own the whale is to know the whale", Otter tells us, and again and again we see how the attempts of striking through the mask are hindered.

Fleece goes on to show how the body does not reflect the interior, by pointing out how some of the sharks have "very brig mouth", but these "brig mouts" are fronts that conceal "small bellies". Similarly, Otter points out how Melville repeatedly shows us that "the skeleton of the whale does not accurately reflect the whale's body".