Moby Dick

*I had intended to post this before Monday’s discussion on gender, but because of internet problems, am only posting this now.

In reading this story through a scientific lens, I find it worth noting that in many instances, Melville is conversely unscientific in his descriptions of whales.  That is, he consciously abandons writing accurately about the natural world, as to make his tale more literary and poetic.  It is interesting how Melville is deliberately inconsistent about this accuracy.  One example that struck me was concerned with the gender and anatomy of the whale.

In the beginning of chapter 102, A Bower in the Arsacides, Melville writes, “But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbuttom him still further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his unconditional skeleton (432 to 433).”

The male subject in the passage refers to the Sperm Whale, but Melville confuses this,in the same sentence, when he describes undressing the whale from its “hose” and “garters,” which are distinctly feminine objects.  As was stated in Monday’s lecture, Melville complicates gender descriptions throughout the book, sometimes probably much more subtly than others.  From what I have noticed, I think that Melville, in other places in the book, consistently refers to whales in the masculine form, but here he is being playful and speculative about gender, which makes for interesting questions.

Also, here Melville is being unscientific in that he is pretending the whale is removing its clothing, rather than being anatomically dissected, which he seems to be referring to, however figuratively .

Back-tracking by quite a bit, Chapter 36, “The Quarter-Deck,” is significant because it is the first chapter in which Ahab addresses his men and in which the dynamic of the entirely male crew is revealed. Ishmael describes the intense pacing of Ahab around his cabin and the deck before he orders Starbuck to summon the crew. Once the mass of men is collected in one location, Ahab initiates a cycle of wild and boisterous chanting:
“‘What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?’
‘Sing out for him!’ was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed voices.
‘Good!’ cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the hearty animation into which his unexpected question has so magnetically thrown them” (142-43).
This chanting back and forth between the captain and his crew continues. This is Ahab’s way of “rallying the troops” before he even mentions the mission of vengeance that is at the heart of the voyage. Words like “impulsive,” “wild approval,” “hearty animation,” and “magnetically” jump out because they are so sensational and they give the reader the impression of a “mob mentality” existing aboard the wholly male Pequod. Ahab is gleeful at how much control he seems to have over his men from the very start as he calls out questions and then listens to the answers shouted back at him in unison. Even the shipmates are taken aback by their instinctual responses and yet they continue to respond naturally: “More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to gaze curiously at each others, as if marveling how it was that they themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions” (143). The reader is reminded of the control a general or lieutenant has over a group of men in a militaristic setting.

Next, Ahab begins to reveal the sinister side of his plot. He moves closer to his sailors, shows them a gold coin in one hand, and announces that the killer of a large white-headed whale shall receive this coin. The immediate response of the crew is a joyous “‘Huzza! Huzza!’” (143). Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg recognize their captain’s description of the white whale as they have all heard of Moby Dick. Starbuck makes the connection between Moby Dick and Ahab’s lost leg, to which Ahab admits. All of the men continue to chant and shout excitedly and supportively, as if completely unperturbed by the announcement of this secondary mission of the Pequod; however, Starbuck is rational and sharp enough to realize the dilemma, and so he challenges Ahab. While the others do not recognize that they have been cheated by Ahab – that they are now trapped on a ship hunting a very large and dangerous whale without knowing before boarding that this would be the captain’s main goal – Starbuck comments that “I came here to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee…it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market” (145). Ahab tries to appeal to Starbuck’s sense of pride, and although Starbuck quiets his dissent, he quietly mutters to God to look out for his safety and the safety of the others.

After having already used vocal stimulation and fiscal incentive to rally his men on a personal vendetta, Ahab calls for them to congregate in a circle on the deck, and for his harpooners to carry their weapons. Ishmael describes the eyes of the riveted men as “wild” and compares them to “the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves” who “meet the eye of their leader” (146-47). Ahab whips out his next tool in exciting his male crew – the pewter brimming with alcohol. Ahab orders his men to “‘Drink and pass!’” the pewter around in the circle so that every man receives some of the delicious beverage (147). The pewter is refilled and the men continue to drink. They drink upon their captain’s command as he yells out to the seas and the skies that the Pequod will be hunting Moby Dick to his death. Finally, after “the replenished pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew,” Ahab waves his hand for them all to disperse and returns to his cabin to rest (148). It was thus the captain’s combination of excitedly vocal chanting, monetary reward, and communal drinking that activates the crew and puts them in this so-called frantic state. Melville is exploring the stereotypes of manhood, masculinity, and the bonds between men. Money and alcohol are stereotypical allures for men, and Ahab utilizes them cleverly. The only true resistance he receives comes from Starbuck, who realizes he has no way out of this mess and must rely on God to save his life. Therefore, “The Quarter-Deck” is an important chapter that establishes the dynamic of the crew, who answer wholeheartedly and excitedly to the mad Ahab without truly appreciating how they have been wronged.

For today I want to explore one of the most curious and intriguing chapters in the novel, “A Squeeze of the Hand,” in which Melville describes the camaraderie of the Pequod’s crew as they extract and harvest spermaceti from a dead whale. The title itself – I presume very cleverly and purposefully chosen by Melville – carries an obvious erotic connotation. The chapter was a target of nineteenth century critics disapproving of the homoerotic overtones in Melville’s writing, just as the scenes in which Ishmael and Queequeg share a bed as if man and wife in the early portions of the novel were targets. Like many of Melville’s chapters in Moby Dick, “A Squeeze of the Hand” is simultaneously brief and complex, short and profound. It can almost stand alone: it does not push the main plot forward; it reveals truths about life; and it is beautifully and vividly written. At the same time, it is a useful chapter that fits into the overall structure of the book.

Firstly, the chapter functions partially to give the reader more information about the process of whaling, much like “The Line” does. It explains how the lumps in the spermaceti need to be squeezed and smoothed out by the hands of the men so that they are turned into a consistent fluid. The act has a fiscal bend to it: the sperm itself is a commercially coveted product, a “favorite cosmetic,” “sweetener,” “softener,” and “delicious mollifier” (372). A little wiki research tells me that the wax-like substance was used in cosmetics, lubricants, leatherworking, and the production of candles. Secondly, also separate from the homoeroticism apparent in its language, this chapter functions on a homosocial level. Melville portrays the comradery of shipmates working together to complete a task – one that, as a refreshing change from hours of arduous labor aboard the Pequod, is fun, messy, exciting, and pleasurable. It is a prime example of the bonding of men in a social working environment.

But the homoeroticism in “A Squeeze of the Hand” is undeniable, and thus the chapter goes beyond mere technical description of whaling and description of homosocial comradery. Melville’s very graphic and evocative language includes careful choices of words and phrases, i.e. “Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into It”; “I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules”; “abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling”; “at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally” (372). (In addition, as I was reading, the description of the unctuousness of the substance reminded me of the imagery produced by contemporary artist Matthew Barney in The Cremaster Cycle, a series of abstract art films in which fantastical characters squirm and crawl in tunnels of white, thick, messy, globbing fluid meant to resemble semen. I can only imagine what Barney would do with this scene if he were to make a film version of Moby Dick; funnily enough, he has made a film about a Norwegian whaling vessel.) Given Melville’s alarmingly and emphatically erotic language, one can understand why this chapter was such an outrage among nineteenth century readers and critics!

Melville’s inclusion of the word “unwittingly” in the phrase “unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands” is intriguing because it implies that Ishmael becomes so caught up in this moment of pleasure that he cannot control his desire to touch the other men and feel sentimental about being with them. The experience is exciting for Ishmael and made more exciting by the fact that he can share it with his crewmates. Perhaps as he wrote this, the supposedly homosexual Melville identified with his character in terms of having uncontrollable sexual attraction to men. (On this note, after reading Ishmael’s emphatically erotic and loving description of the squeezing of the sperm, I wish I could read the same event from the point of view of the other characters to see if the pleasure is experienced by them as much and as sensually as Ishmael. I feel uncertain that the others were having dreams about “long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti” – easily the most absurd, tongue-in-cheek illusion in the entire comical chapter. I believe comedy must have been another function of this chapter in Melville’s mind, just as the scenes of Ishmael and Queequeg are so ridiculous they inspire the reader the laugh out loud.)

I think, however, the most important function of the chapter is not to shock the reader with its homoerotic language but to reveal how lonely, difficult, and dreary the whaling life can be on the seas for months at a time. The men are away from civilization for long periods and have little contact with other people; additionally, they must be going crazy just from having to sleep in such uncomfortable cabins at night! Although we know that Ishmael chooses to go to sea for positive psychological purposes, as he explains in the first chapter that sailing is a superior option for him than suicide (or homicide), the overt pleasures and delights of the whaling lifestyle must be few and far between. Thus, an experience like this smoothing of the whale spermaceti stands out as being fun and different. It is a departure from the usual. It feels good and, at least in Ishmael, inspires happy illusions and visions.

Another intriguing aspect of the chapter is how Melville uses food metaphors to describe the satisfaction of the action: for instance, Ishmael says that the spermaceti are “gentle globules of infiltrated tissues…richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma…” (372) and that the whale’s blanket of blubber “is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason, it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison season” (374). This might have been a technique by Melville to shock the reader: “How can such an act be so enjoyable and even mouth-watering?,” one might ask. The comparison of the whale’s body parts to food, ranging from grapes to venison to wine, is so vivid and delicious-seeming that the reader might fall into Melville’s trap and want to try tasting the blubber or sperm for himself or herself. This, in combination with Ishmael’s statement that he could spend his entire life squeezing the sperm with his male comrades, challenges the conventional, heteronormative reader. Not all happiness is experienced through heteronormative relationships between men and women in typical settings with typical gender dynamics.

To conclude, I believe Melville used this chapter to function as technically explanatory, comical, implicative of homosocial comradery, implicative of homoeroticism, and, perhaps most importantly, revealing of the difficulty of the whaling lifestyle. It certainly calls into question traditional masculinity and expected roles of men in a same-sex environment.

In the next many chapters we are finally introduced to a real female presence: the whaling ship. The ship is consistently referred to using feminine pronouns and whaling is even referred to as an “Egyptian mother” (p. 104). This is a particularly curious and perhaps problematic element of our interpretation of gender within the realm of whaling for it creates a complex relationship perhaps impossible to fully interpret. On the one hand, we have of course the possibility of a highly misogynistic interpretation in which the men control the female boat, using her and constantly redirecting her in order to accomplish their task. However, there is at the same time the fact that the whale-men respect and value the ship they sail upon, depending on her greatly to guide them and keep them safe out at sea. In addition, we cannot ignore given the rest of this novel thus far the sheer magnitude of this feminine presence: the ship plays an obviously substantial role in the voyage and thus in the entire story and is referred to at times as having its own will, if not personality:

“But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore…” (p. 102)

Nevertheless, the ship remains an object.

This odd tension can be resolved in part, I believe, when we look to the gender of the whale. In the highly recognizeable and widely known exclamation “there she blows!” the whale is considered female. This static phrase, however, is where that gender role begins and ends, for both in describing Moby Dick and the stories and reputations of other famous whales, they are all referred to as “he” and in fact are given each and every one a highly masculine name. In taking these two non-human but highly highly prominent elements of the novel, we can see a complex but also undeniable sexism. The whale, while referred to from a distance as female, is considered not just male but overwhelmingly masculine, almost brutish, when up close revealing its strength, size, and intelligence, e.g. when the battle begins. This seems to indicate the necessity by the whale-men to maintain their pride and masculinity by creating a dominant male threat to fight against.

Shortly after Ahab’s first appearance to the crew, in which he gives his speech and reveals the true nature of their quest, Starbuck makes an interesting comment regarding his fellow shipmates:

“Oh God! To sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them!  Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea.  The white whale is their demigorgon!” (150)

Of course, the lack of a feminine presence on the ship is a topic which has already been noted several times.  I found it interesting, however, that here Starbuck makes a direct reference to the lack of a mother’s influence on his crewmates, suggesting that they have been somehow tainted by their voyage and made something other than human.  Perhaps it is not surprising that this character, who has been established as a religious and conservative family man, is so opposed to the violent spirit of masculinity that seems to have overrun the ship following Ahab’s speech.  Nevertheless, it is significant that he states his opinion directly to us and continues to condemn his colleagues so thoroughly.

Ahab, in the depths of his genius and his insanity, is not overly subtle in his attempt to manipulate the crew into following him without question.   He uses the speech not only to imbibe a sense of adventure and thrill of the hunt , but also to strengthen the homosocial bonds between the crew, constantly addressing them as “men” or “boys.”   In the chapter immediately preceding Starbuck’s comment Ahab says to himself (or perhaps the reader), “Twas not so hard a task.  I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve” (149).  Even the weary Starbuck will not yet do anything other than quietly mourn for what he believes will prove to be a disastrous turn of events.  If the Pequod is to be interpreted as a nation, it is a nation where the “feminine” values of peace and rational thinking have been thrown to the sea in favor of a group mentality entirely focused on chasing and killing Moby Dick.

Perhaps, to some degree, Melville shares Starbuck’s fear of this dictator who is capable of inspiring fear, awe, and ultimately loyalty in his subjects on the way to a kind of totalitarianism.  In this respect it is not difficult to imagine why some in the 1930s looked back at Moby Dick and thought Melville anticipated this kind of militaristic regime.  One might say that rather than race or religion, the spirit of hypermasculinity has become a critical rallying point for these sailors who completely buy into Ahab’s own agenda.

Throughout the middle section of this novel, Melville seems to finally address the femininity that he left out of the earlier pages of the novel; but he uses whales to fill this void.  This causes a sharp distinction to emerge between the masculine life aboard the whaling ship and the feminine world that they hunt.

Melville gives to women the stereotypical characteristics of docility, gentleness, grace, and beauty, and compares these feminine virtues to whales.  In chapter 85, “The Tail,” Melville describes the “delicacy” of the sweeping motion of the tail as having a “maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface of the sea.” (337)  Later on, in chapter 92, “Ambergris,” Melville says that “the motion of a Sperm Whale’s flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor.”  (368)  In both of these  instances, whales are compared to genteel ladies — a stark contrast to the sweaty, dirty, hard-working men aboard the Pequod.  In chapter 77, Melville describes Tashtego’s escape from the whale’s head as “the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego.” (308)  (This also reminds me of the story in Greek mythology of Athena springing from the head of Zeus.)  Here the whale becomes feminized through the depiction of birth.

In chapter 89, “Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish,” Melville directly says, in the context of describing a trial that “the whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.” (355)  Melville clearly wants the reader to see the whale as containing the feminine characteristics that have barely appeared in the rest of the novel.  (I find it curious and slightly suspicious, however, that Melville chose to use the above words in a chapter whose title uses the words “fast” and “loose,” since those two words also mean “promiscuous.”)

Through his comparisons, Melville has set up the whaling world to mirror the society of the time — men chase women.  But does this mean that Melville thinks women should be given more freedom?  Does a man’s control over his wife stifle and even kill her spirit?  His attitude towards women confuses me; I’d like to think that he was a forward thinking man, but I don’t think he could entirely escape the attitudes of his society.  In chapter 85, “The Tail,” Melville describes the whale’s power as similar to Jesus’; the pictures of him do not show his power, but instead show “the mere negative, feminine [traits] of submission and endurance, which…form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings.” (336)  So does Melville believe that the docile, feminine exterior can hide power underneath?  Does he believe that women can be powerful in their femininity?  Three chapters later in “Schools and Schoolmasters,” Melville says that the old whale “will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets.  (353)  Something wild, who in the fact of her secret keeping holds some form of power, makes the best wife.  This is hardly the quiet gentlewoman desired by so many men back on the mainland.

But later on in that chapter, Melville seems to revert back to the society-backed ideal of women when Ishmael says that he has “perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country.” (373)  Here Melville, or at least Ishmael, shows his desire for the typical life of a man — to live with a loving wife who has has his supper on the table when he returns home from work.

How did Melville view women?  Maybe, as we discussed in class, it wasn’t so much the woman as the binding contract of marriage that disturbed Melville; after his marriage he was bound to a father-in-law that he disagreed with.  Perhaps Melville wanted to marry the freedom that the ocean presented instead of marrying a future that would keep him strapped down in one place.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1988, reissued 2008. Print.

I apologize for this post coming so late, but I wanted to look back at the first scenes in the novel in which Ishmael and Queequeg interact, in chapters 3 and 4. As other blog posts in this topic have already mentioned, the lack of female characters in Moby Dick leaves us readers with no choice but to closely examine the homosocial and pseudo-homosexual relationships that take place in the realm of Melville’s imagination. The first communication between Ishmael and Queequeg is odd, amusing, and revealing.

Ishmael admits being terrified of the tattooed cannibal but then acknowledges that his fear is unfounded and born out of ignorance: “What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself–the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” (22). Ishmael describes his night of sleep with the foreigner as the best of his life, but upon waking he discovers “Queequeg’s arm thrown over [him] in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought [he] had been his wife” (22). But this “pagan,” tattooed arm is not any ordinary arm; Ishmael compares it to the patchwork quilt on the bed they share. (Perhaps irrelevant, but I couldn’t help but think of Freudian discussions of fetishes in the early twentieth century.) Queequeg’s gender role is confused by conflicting, contradictory character traits and habits – for instance, “the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style” (as if Ishmael is his wife) contrasts with his appearance, tattoos, snoring, grunting, harpoon shaving, etc.

I believe Melville wrote this humorous exchange with the intent to make readers laugh. In fact the scene is hysterical in its awkwardness. Besides serving as a moment of a comedy in a largely dark, romantic novel, this scene might also be Melville’s way of exploring “the Other.” Ishmael the narrator seems to mimic Melville the author in many ways, and Ishmael’s struggling to work through and understand the exotic foreigner’s habits, customs, and intentions parallels Melville’s struggling to accept and trust the foreigners of the Pacific and the Caribbean in his own travels. Ishmael is ignorant of Queequeg’s background and thus these few pages in the novel serve as a cultural exploration: how might gender roles and expectations be different for Queequeg, an unknown and unpredictable force, than typical Americans in the nineteenth century? Queequeg is “off” in that he does not satisfy our culture’s understanding of gender divisions, as is revealed in his loving clutch of Ishmael in bed. He walks the line between masculinity and femininity. This further sets him apart as an outsider and clarifies that he is very different from Ishmael and the other American-born and raised men on the Pequod who abide by typical gender roles. Queequeg is “otherized” even more greatly. On page 25, Ishmael uses two different metaphors to assert Queequeg’s differentness and his transitioning into a person who fits more naturally and fluidly into normal society: “But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition stage—neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner. His education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate” (25).

Today it is increasingly difficult to find a book where romance does not play some role in the plot – in the worst cases it seems nothing more than an attempt to make a book sexy and appealing to readers.   Perhaps the lack of any hint of romantic interest within (at least the first twenty chapters of) the novel is one of the reasons modern readers find it hard to relate to Moby Dick and often label it “boring.”  Of the few female characters we have met even briefly (Mrs. Hussey, Aunt Charity), none are described in any way other than domestic providers, for better or for worse. While in many adventure novels (and, indeed, in other works by Melville) the exotic and seductive female “savage” is a commonly found character, it is interesting that the role of savage is here embodied by a man, Queequeg.

“Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning.  Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg – a cosy, loving pair.” (47)

Ishmael and Queequeg’s relationship is significant on many levels, not least of all because of the fact that they are two men who share close physical and emotional bonds.  The above excerpt is particularly descriptive of this aspect of their friendship, to the point it is described more than once as a “marriage” between the two of them.  Ishmael proves to be surprisingly receptive to not only sharing a bed with this savage stranger, but also sharing with him ideas and cultural practices.  Surprising also is the unexpected physicality between the pair; one passage describing how while sleeping together in bed they “rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were sleeping” seems almost sexually suggestive (51).  While I do not necessarily think this was Melville’s intention, it nevertheless prompts readers to reflect on these roles normally shared between man and wife.  Of course, it is important to remember that the companionship Ishmael feels with Queequeg is paired with his persistent stereotyping of his friend’s cannibalism and paganism.  If we are to think of their relationship as a type of marriage, despite his obvious physical strength Queequeg’s apparent ignorance and role as a certain kind of outcast in a man’s world would perhaps make him what an ostensibly sexist writer like Melville would perceive as the “wife.”

Among the many themes of Moby Dick, gender is not one I would have thought featured prominently.  However, as I read the novel it becomes more and more clear that the bonds of masculinity Ishmael perceives between the crew members of Pequod will be an important theme throughout.  The general lack of female characters forces readers to think more deeply about the homosocial relationships found in Moby Dick, and in these first twenty chapters the bond Ishmael shares with Queequeg seems like it will be one of the most important.

It is quite clear from the beginning of this novel that Melville views whaling and seafaring as a man’s world; in the description of the boarders,

“[t]hey were nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates, and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and blacksmiths, and harpooneers, and ship keepers…” (p. 29);

this list is only a brief suggestion of all the roles upheld by men in this profession. It becomes important, then, in analyzing gender roles in this novel to first acknowledge the absence of a female presence and then look to the examples we are given to formulate some idea of what women stand for in this novel, and how they stand in contrast to the heavily masculine (though potentially “homosocial” or homoerotic as someone has already stated) lifestyle and personality depicted in this book.

In this first section, we see women in two basic ways: as upholding the stereotype of the female as predominantly a wife and housekeeper, and secondly as someone who reprimands or is overly stubborn and frantic in disposition. The first is evidenced primarily by the role of Mrs. Hussy, who is the first real female character we encounter; she runs an inn and readies the meals and keeps weapons out of the rooms in a motherly fashion but does little else of importance. In addition to this there appear small details such as the women who sit, mourning the loss of their seamen in the chapel, and the difference between Queequeg’s honorable relatives:

“His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors” (p. 53);

the women gain status only by the men they align themselves with.

The second aspect of the female I observed is also present in the character of Mrs. Hussy who is seen reprimanding both upon our first view of her and when Ishmael seeks her out to open his door. We see this particularly clearly during the panic that ensues when Ishmael becomes concerned about Queequeg behind the locked door and she is wholly concerned with the house and the door not being broken and in fact matches Ishmael’s emotional level in protecting it. The housemaid, as well, reveals a sense of women as irrational, overly emotional beings, who cannot keep their heads on during a state of panic in her reaction by screaming out “murder” and running about the house; this may contribute, though not directly stated, to the complete absence of women we see on the actual boats, which Ishmael makes quite clear is a demanding, honorable, and manly endeavor.

Moby Dick, at least through the first 21 chapters, is primarily concerned with masculinity. To demonstrate, leafing through a Google image search of “Moby Dick,” one will find completely unrelated images of cars and narcotics before coming across an image invoking any feeling of femininity, let alone one of a female character. Significant characters in these chapters are almost entirely male, themes addressed are traditionally masculine ones, and allusions are to still more male characters for masculine works. Melville was also influenced, first and foremost, by male authors; stylistically by Sir Thomas Browne, the 17th century prose writer, by Shakespeare, especially for his characters, and of course, by his contemporary, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom the novel is dedicated.

In the opening paragraph, Ishmael tells us that, “If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.” Though Melville does not mean men in the sense of humanity, he means only men, and excluding women. Ishmael holds that men go to sea and does not leave any interpretation that women too may be drawn to the sea and take up the lives of whalewomen alongside their husbands. He is a sexist and selfish narrator for our story, and when he goes on in chapter 1 to discuss his interest in going to sea as a sailor, rather than a passenger, he seems to imply that real men live as active, paid sailors, and women and the rest, go as the paying passengers.

Under the masculine perspective of our narrator, there lie some homosocial, if not homosexual themes in these opening chapters. The character interactions are primarily homosocial and may touch on a possible homosexual undertone when Ishmael must go to bed with Queequeg, though Melville heteronormatively points out that, “No man prefers to sleep two in a bed.”

However masculine, no story can be completely devoid of feminine influences. As Ishmael duly points out when describing the warmth of his and Queequeg’s bed, “…there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.” Among these touches of the other gender, we see work here fulfilled in very traditional male-female roles: The sailors are all men, while the women remain at shore to tend the the sailors, their families, and their (husbands’) businesses, as this was a sexist society. And then of course, the good old Pequot is portrayed as a female vessel, referred to as “she” as most all ships are.

Melville may have been concerned with issues of race and equality when writing his great work, but through the reading of these introductory chapters, one may doubt that he held any similar views of gender equality or the importance of the feminine perspective.