Call Me Exhausted

Reading Moby-Dick feels like it has been a real adventure. Unlike after Blithedale Romance or Behind a Mask, I feel like I accomplished a great feat. A big part of that is probably its status as being one of the greatest American novels ever written. It’s referenced in all sorts of things I love (Futurma, Starbucks coffee, The Simpsons, etc.), so I had some knowledge of the story before reading it, but I didn’t understand the subtleties. I knew the line, “Call me Ishmael,” but I didn’t fully grasp the significance.

Now that I’ve read it, I can actually analyze the characters. I can talk about why Ahab was so interested in getting a white whale? (His losing of a limb at the hands jaws of this whale caused him to develop a case of the revenge monomania.) I can inquire as to what the nature of the relationship was between Ishmael and Queequeg, and further inquire as to whether or not it parallels with the relationship between Hawthorne and Melville. (Queequeg and Ishmael were totally lovers, even if homosexuality wasn’t yet an identifier.)

             In a way, I have slain the leviathan that is Moby Dick. No, I didn’t kill a whale, but I read through the densely packed 135 chapters of the novel. Some of it was very interesting. I found the parts showing Ahab’s descent to madness to be especially entertaining. Some of it, however, was a pain to get through. Take the whales being compared to folios chapter. Ugh! I actually fell asleep reading that one. No kidding. I woke up with my face in the book. Sure, one could blame it on the pinot noir I was drinking at the time, but I also fell asleep during the measuring of the whale skeleton chapter while drinking coffee.

            That’s not to say that book was overall boring. I’m glad I read Moby-Dick. It has given me many great ideas with my own writing. (As a creative writing major, I could always use more ideas!) For example, the way Melville plays with point of view. I have always chosen one narrator (usually an omniscient one), and stuck with him/her. After having read Moby-Dick, I’m interested in playing around with the narrator. Maybe I’ll have a story where the narrator hides in the background for a while. Maybe he’ll be a person who at times tells it from an aged POV looking back, whereas at other times he’ll be telling it from the perspective of his young self, experiencing it all.

            Moby-Dick was a challenge to read, but I feel as though I’ll be a better writer now that I’ve read it. 

I Want Your Skull! I Need Your Skull!

“I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.” These words are declared by Ishmael on the top of page 222. Not only does it allude to the fact that he's ready to commit mutiny at the drop of a hat, but also that he is a cannibal. Cannibals eat their own kind, so if he's a cannibal, who is he eating?

I think this refers to the whales. On page 275, he says, “you will be struck by [the whale's skull's] resemblance to the human skull.” Underneath all of their skin and fat, and underneath all of our scalp lies a similar bone structure.

The bones in the whale's fin also resemble that of a hand. They must surface for air just like any other mammal. They sing and communicate like people.

It's also no coincidence that the book contains numerous biblical references. In Christianity, Jesus is a living, human God. In Moby-Dick, the whale serves as a sort of eternal judge; it dishes out punishment for those who are judged to be bad.

So in a way, Moby Dick is an anthropomorphic god and they are out to kill and possibly eat the cursed whale.

*sigh* Another History Post

Savage. This is a word frequently used by Ishmael towards Queequeg in Moby-Dick, and as horrible as it is, the implications aren’t the same as if they were used in today’s world. Racism was certainly a problem in the early 19^th century, but its basis was different. Today, we think of racism as judging people by the color of their skin. In the time of Moby-Dick, however, racism had more to do with geography.

Queequeg is seen as being a savage because of his origins as a Pacific Islander. The same was thought of Hawaiians, Filipino, and other such people from that region. Other tribe-based societies like that of the American Indians and some tribes in Africa were also given these types of labels. Contrasting to that, people from many Arab and Middle Eastern cultures were considered to be barbarians. They were a step up from savages, but weren’t equal to white Christians.

Europeans (and those who had European ancestry) considered themselves to be at the top of the social pyramid. This idea likely an extension from the thoughts of the ancient Greeks. That society was very focused on trying to obtain perfection—which to them meant being a very masculine white male. (Sorry ladies.) They maintained that with effort women could become men. However, once perfection was achieved, it couldn't go away. Nature preferred perfection, so a man could never devolve into a woman. (Many who would be considered men by today's standards would be considered too feminine to be men back then, though.)

That said, it wasn't whiteness that defined Europeans: it was Christianity. We see numerous references to identification by religion with Ishmael. He often identifies as a Christian and labels Queequeg as a Pagan. The use of the word pagan here is interesting: pagan isn't a word that nature worshipers and other such pantheists chose for themselves; it was given to them by Christians and was adapted from a word used by the Romans to indicate an “incompetent soldier.” (Etymonline)

So if resentments were based on culture, why did it change to skin color? One reason would be justifications. The American Civil War brought the issue of slavery front and center with abolitionists pointing out the hypocrisy in stating that all men were created equal when some men owned other men as property. The justification from those who were pro-slavery, of course, was that men with dark skin weren't people. They even had some scientists who went out and made the case that people of color and white people were separate species.

If you would like to learn more on this subject, there's a great video out there called Race: The Power of Illusion. It goes way more in-depth on this and also covers the Indian Removal Act carried out by Andrew Jackson in 1830.

The Love Boat

As many in our class have noticed, there seems to be some fondness between Ishmael and Queequeg in Melville’s Moby-Dick; a fondness that goes beyond that of friends. Sure, one can look at it say that it’s an example of brotherly love, but that doesn’t really fit with how Ishmael described their cuddling. “Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife.” He also refers to Queequeg’s tomahawk as being like a baby, cuddling with them in bed. This conjures up images of a nuclear family. It’s like their the married husband and wife, with the tomahawk playing the role of the child. “We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we[.]” This last line appears in a chapter entitled “Nightgown”, which is a feminine nightwear outfit. By today’s standards, we at least question whether or not these men are gay, but human sexuality hadn’t yet used sexuality as an identity.

When Moby-Dick was published in 1851, sexuality was seen as more of behaviour; something that you do. This all changed in 1886 when German scientist Richard von Krafft-Ebing decided to research sexuality from a biological standpoint (Rosario). In his work Psychopathia Sexualis, Krafft-Ebing hilighted four sexual “disorders”: decreased, increased, precocious or senile, and perverted sexual drive. Homosexuality (or psychosexual inversion, as it was called then) was considered to be “contrary sexual feeling” and was a perversion; a perversion that was caused by degenerative hereditary and moral insanity. This degeneration was a result of unhealthy behaviours and/or environments damaging the people’s genes.

With all this in mind, would the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg be seen as being well within the norm? Not exactly. Based on the words used by Ishmael, I think it still would have been seen as being a little odd for the time. Ishmael is taking on the gender roles of a woman when it comes to sharing a bed. He’s being submissive. In addition to the physical aspects, they carry on other couple roles. They carry out idle chit-chat for hours while cuddling. They end up sharing a smoke. Does this make them a gay couple? Not necessarily. All it means is that their relationship is outside that of the norm.

Works Cited

Rosario, Vernon A. "Science and Sexual Identity: An Essay Review." Journal of the History of Medicine 57 (2002): 79-85.