The episode with the Bachelor is one of the novel's most effective examples of the use of contrast and detail. The Bachelor contrasts with the Virgin (Chapter 81) in that its crew and captain are experienced, skilled whalers who are at the end of a successful voyage. In addition to their abilities, they have been blessed with good luck and have filled the ship with oil while other vessels in the same seas, reminiscent of the Virgin when it was met, have sometimes gone for months without capturing a single whale. The Bachelor's hold is bursting with casks of sperm oil. Barrels of food, no longer needed on the shortened journey, have been given away to make more room — or traded for supplemental casks. Barrels of oil are stowed on deck and in the officers' and even the captain's quarters, the officers' mess table removed and burned to make more room. Crewmen have caulked and pitched their sea chests, turning them into makeshift casks for more and more oil. Someone jokes that the cook has filled his largest boiler with oil and the steward his spare coffeepot. Everything is filled with oil, Ishmael says, except the captain's trouser pockets.
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