It's safe to say that, in this poem, man doesn't have the easiest relationship with the natural world. We're either doing a bad job of caring for it or we're being punished by it. According to the epigraph of "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket," humans have the responsibility to be the caretakers of all creatures, the "fowls of the air and the beasts of the whole earth." That's a lotta responsibility, and the speaker in the poem isn't quite sure that we've done a good job of it.
In fact, the poem has some pretty condemning words for the sailors who hunted the whales for their own profit, and he holds the sailors accountable for their deaths (both the whales' and their own). The sea and the wind are also heavily present in the poem, but they—unlike the animals—aren't under man's control. They instead operate as a tool of the gods, causing storms to be used when humans need to be reminded of their mortality. As a result of nature, lots of the sailors in this poem meet their maker.
Questions About Man and the Natural World
- What relationship do the sailors have with the creatures of the earth? Do the sailors believe they have dominion over the white whale? How can you tell?
- What role do birds and their songs play in the poem? How do they reflect the speaker's emotions?
- How is the wind represented? In what ways does it affect man?
- How is the relationship between man and the sea portrayed? What lesson(s) are we supposed to take away from this portrayal?
Chew on This
The birds in the poem are personified to mirror the speaker's emotions—sort of like a very early version of Angry Birds.
Don't be fooled by the postcards. The sea ain't friendly, and mankind is foolish to try to conquer it.