46 pages • 1 hour read
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
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Chapters 4-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Augustus begins recounting what has been happening on the ship. He had tried to talk to Pym from above the hold, but he found that the latter was always sleeping. The two now realize that this is because the smell of old fish oil can cause extreme drowsiness. After several days, a mutiny broke out. The mutineers killed some of the crew and set the others—including Captain Barnard—adrift in a small boat.
Augustus befriended a sailor named Dirk Peters, who is less violent than the other sailors. As disagreements broke out among the mutineers, Peters kept Augustus alive by claiming the latter as his clerk. While trying to make his way to the hold to contact Pym, Augustus was caught by one of the more violent crew members, who handcuffed him and imprisoned him in the berth.
Chapter 5 Summary
Augustus continues his description of the mutiny and its aftermath. He managed to remove the handcuffs, but before he could escape, Peters entered with Tiger. Prior to the Grampus’s departure, Augustus had secretly arranged to bring Tiger on board, knowing he would be a comfort to Pym. During the violence of the uprising, the dog hid underneath a whaleboat; Peters eventually freed him. Augustus eventually cut through the floor and sent Tiger to find Pym with the note warning the latter to stay hidden.
Meanwhile, the mutineers split into two factions. One group, led by the former first mate, wants to seize the first vessel they find and go on a “piratical cruise,” while the other—which includes Peters—wants to continue on the Grampus’s original voyage and go the South Pacific in search of a whale. Augustus ultimately freed himself and reached the hold with food and water for Pym. When he called out to Pym but received no response, Augustus almost abandoned him, assuming he died after being confined to the box for 11 days. However, he heard a crash when Pym angrily threw an empty bottle, and he realized his friend was still alive.
Chapter 6 Summary
Augustus helps Pym and Tiger move closer to the hole he created in the floor of the berth so they can breathe fresher air. Pym reflects on the problems caused by the Grampus’s poorly organized cargo hold and explains in a detailed digression why holds must be properly organized. Augustus returns to the berth and pretends he is still handcuffed. Peters begins allowing Augustus greater freedom of movement, and Augustus provides Pym and Tiger with food, water, and blankets. The mutineers continue to drink heavily and argue about how to proceed, with more of the sailors agreeing to “turn pirates.” Peters approaches Augustus about taking over the ship to prevent this from happening, and Augustus agrees immediately.
Chapter 7 Summary
A sailor named Hartman Rogers, one of Peters’s supporters, dies after drinking a glass of grog. Peters suspects the first mate had Rogers murdered, and he declares that they must take the ship back. Augustus reveals Pym and Tiger to Peters, who is happy to see them. After gathering the few weapons they can find, the three men dress Pym up as the dead Rogers, knowing the sailors will be at the whim of their superstitions.
Chapter 8 Summary
As a storm approaches, Peters and Augustus drink in the cabin with the mutineers. Peters steers the conversation toward Rogers, whose body is still on board the ship after a failed sea burial. Pym enters the cabin dressed as Rogers, scaring the first mate so badly that he drops dead. The mutineers quickly realize they were deceived, and chaos ensues. One sailor stabs Augustus several times in his right arm and is prevented from killing him only when Tiger appears, jumping at the man’s throat. Eventually, Peters and Pym are victorious. The only surviving member of the first mate’s party is a man named Richard Parker, who is taken prisoner.
Throughout the night and into the following day, Peters, Pym, and Parker prepare the ship for the coming storm. However, the sails cannot withstand the wind’s strength, and the heavy waves soon tear off the rudder. A large wave washes over the Grampus, filling it entirely with water.
Chapters 4-8 Analysis
For a large portion of this section of the text, Augustus becomes the protagonist. He does not fully take over the narrative—events are not seen directly from his point of view; however, the story is primarily told in this section through his reporting of his activities during the mutiny. This is the first time that Pym is not central to the unspooling of events, and it represents one of the first major shifts in the novel’s narrative style.
The crash of the bottle is significant in structuring the narrative: It both separates Pym’s story from Augustus’s and marks the point at which the stories are brought back together. After draining the last drop of the liqueur Augustus had left in the box, a frustrated Pym smashes it on the floor. This signals to Augustus that Pym is still alive and motivates him to save his friend. It is, thus, an example of a seemingly insignificant narrative occurrence that ultimately has a major impact on the lives of the characters and catalyzes the plot.
This is also the section in which the novel’s perspectives on race and otherness are articulated for the first time. Dirk Peters is introduced, and his Indigenous background is highlighted as part of his “ferocious” appearance (32). Additionally, the “black cook” on the ship is referred to as “a perfect demon” and is responsible for many of the murders that take place during and after the mutiny (31). While Peters is ultimately revealed to be kind and brave, the cook is never redeemed. He is one of many people of color in the novel who are depicted as naturally violent and immoral, reflecting the long history of othering Black and Indigenous people in Western literature, particularly in adventure narratives. In its depiction of these two characters, the novel makes a clear distinction in who can and cannot be civilized by Western influence, which is treated as an inherent good by the narrative.
It is also in this section of the text that sailor superstitions are a driving narrative force. When Pym disguises himself as the dead Rogers, he is counting on the mutineers to believe in the truth of what is before them: “[T]hat in the minds of the mutineers there was not even the shadow of a basis upon which to rest a doubt that the apparition of Rogers was indeed a revivification of his disgusting corpse, or at least its spiritual image” (56). This is indeed what happens, which suggests that Pym, despite his lack of experience at sea, has an informed understanding of sailors’ collective belief systems. This is also the point at which the novel becomes most closely associated with the literary Gothic so often associated with Poe: psychological terror, the return of the dead, and the invasion of the everyday world by uncanny or inexplicable events.
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