# Captain Barnard — The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket character guide

> Captain Barnard in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0002-i

## Snapshot

A well-known New Bedford sea-captain whose whaling stories inflame young Pym's imagination, and whose ship becomes the stage for the voyage's worst horrors.

## Who they are

Barnard commands the Grampus and, by extension, the trust of Nantucket's merchant families; his son Augustus is Pym's closest friend and co-conspirator. His long absences at sea create the opening the boys exploit, and his authority aboard ship is the very thing mutineers must destroy. His fate—and the ship's—sets the moral weather for everything that follows.

## In the story

### [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_narrative_of_arthur_gordon_pym_of_nantucket_se/chapters/iv)

Captain Barnard is attacked, tied up, and left dying with a deep wound to the forehead during the mutiny.

### [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_narrative_of_arthur_gordon_pym_of_nantucket_se/chapters/v)

The captain against whom the mutiny was instigated; his sea stores are being consumed by the mutineers.

## Links

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