Moby-Dick Characters

Meet the Cast

Ishmael

(Click the character infographic to download.) Call Me What, Now?It seems pretty easy to identify Ishmael and his role in Moby-Dick: he’s a young, white, American man living in the mid-nineteenth...

Captain Ahab

(Click the character infographic to download.) Meet The Dude Whose Name Is Synonymous With RevengeCaptain Ahab: one of the best whaling captains in Nantucket, the commander of the Pequod, and de...

Queequeg

(Click the character infographic to download.)   King QueequegUgh, it would have looked so much cooler if we could have written "Queen Queequeg." Queequeg, like his best buddy Ishmael, has...

Moby Dick

(Click the character infographic to download.) Moby Dick, the legendary White Whale, is an awfully generous sperm whale. He not only lends his name to the title of the novel—he also lends himsel...

Starbuck

(Click the character infographic to download.) This Starbuck Ain't Going To Make You A Pumpkin Spice LatteStarbuck, the first mate on board the Pequod, is a long, thin, earnest Nantucket Quaker. Hi...

Stubb

Stubb is the boorish uncle that makes says mean things at the Thanksgiving table and then says "Can't you take a joke?" But he's also the guy who diffuses tension you can cut with a knife with that...

Flask

You would think a dude named after a jug would be kind of dim... and you'd be right.Flask, the third mate on board the Pequod, is a "short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning wha...

Tashtego

Okay, everyone on the Pequod is pretty much screwed, but poor Tashtego has insult added to injury when he gets trapped inside a dead whale's head. But who is this poor guy?Tashtego is a Native Amer...

Daggoo

Daggoo is an African tribesman from a costal village who voluntarily joined a whaling ship when he was young (in a strange, parodic reversal of the way that slaves were often kidnapped from such vi...

Pip

(Click the character infographic to download.) Poor Pip. First he's saddled with one of the more unfortunate names we can think of and then he goes whaling on the dang Pequod.Pip is a young African...

Fedallah

Fedallah is the harpooneer whom Ahab secretly smuggles aboard the Pequod in order to staff his whaling boat. Fedallah’s origins are mysterious, and we know little more than that he is a Parsee, o...

Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad

Woo! Add Peleg and Bildad to the list of great comedy duos. Key and Peele have nothing on these guys! Oh. Wait. These guys are totally humorless.Captains Peleg and Bildad are retired Nantucket whal...

Father Mapple

Father Mapple: the source for everything you ever wanted to know about Jonah. Oh, you didn't want to know anything about Jonah? Too bad. Father Mapple is the clergyman at the little New Bedford Wha...

Captain Boomer

Captain Boomer, the commander of the English whaling ship the Samuel Enderby, is like Ahab’s reflection in a funhouse mirror: like Ahab, he lost a limb to Moby Dick, a limb that has been replaced...