The Shark
Although the title character of Melville’s poem, the shark is actually only the focus of four lines of verse. The poem opens with a description of the shark as a rather placid, indifferent and—literally—colorless creature moving about dully beneath the surface of the sea. The shark is, in fact, a lethargic, scavenging dotard seemingly dependent for life upon the real star of the poem.
The Pilot-Fish
The other dozen lines of the poem are devoted to the character that does not make it into the title, but is unquestionably the leading role. Standing in stark contrast to the clumsy, slow-moving white blob that is the shark, the pilot-fish is a brilliantly blue fast-moving and intensely alert little fish. The dull intellect of the shark is also pitted against the strategic planning of the pilot-fish who has figured out that the safest place in the ocean to hide from its predators when it senses their approach is inside the mouth of one of the ocean’s most fearsome creatures. Thus does the pilot-fish alert the slow-witted shark that food is nearby.
