Soon (about three pages into the chapter actually) I realized that Herman was just trying to incite hatred. If he had wanted sympathy, he would have provided it through the voice of Ahab. Today we (believe that we) are very race conscious and (believe that) we are less likely to hate something simply because of its color, but in Herman's time (1851) it would be perfectly acceptable to use a ploy like this. Of course, the mere fact that he's trying to do this now is a lot of evidence that he's going to change his mind and write something contradictory by the end. In the end he writes things