Moby Dick

Upon entering the exposition of Moby Dick with race in mind, the problem immediately presents itself of how to situate myself in relationship with the book. How do I navigate my reading of a novel that presents such a complex depiction of race? Which racist ideas to I attribute to Ishmael, and which to Melville, and how can I delineate between the two? It seems likely that in certain cases Melville gives Ishmael an overly prejudiced mindset in order to illuminate and strengthen the realization and rejection of these prejudices through Ishmael’s burgeoning friendship with Queequeg. Even so, what from my perspective may seem steeped in racism may in Melville’s have been highly progressive. Without endeavoring some kind of historically driven psychological reconstructivism, the best I can do seems to be to examine the novel through the words of Ishmael as Melville chose to tell it, making myself aware of the ideas communicated within their context when possible.

The glaring obstacle to straightforwardly applauding Melville’s forward thinking, is that Ishmael’s treatment of his great friend Queequeg, though certainly well intended and one of admiration, is one of objectification and dominance. Ishmael reconstructs Queequeg’s “broken” and implicitly inadequate telling of his story through his own frame

When a new hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two” (49)

In reading this we first of all must remember that within the narrative Ishmael heard this story quite some time ago, his relationship with Queequeg has already played out completely and this therefore reflects his feelings towards him not just at the time of its first telling but the sum of their interactions, and also that Ishmael presents it as a somewhat objective retelling. In the opening sentences Ishmael once again refers to Queequeg as a “savage”, repeatedly comparing him to animals, and even a plant. Overall we get the sense that Ishmael controls the power, specifically the power of language as he is retelling what he deemed Queequeg could not, a motif repeated often throughout the novel when Ishmael translates for Queequeg (with good intentions). The noble and redeeming ambition attributed to Queequeg that eventually leads to giving up his previous “cannibalistic” lifestyle is the ambition to see more of “Christendom” which I interpret both strictly as the Christian world, and also more widely as any part of the world worth really learning about, any part of the world with allying Christian morals. This desire shares an intimate connection with whaling, an early harbinger of Queequeg and Ishmael’s coming relationship as ‘partners of fate’ that is developed later in the novel.

I know I’m giving Ishmael a hard time, certainly Melville and his character are products of a different time, and they continually demonstrate an unhappiness with and wish to change the current state of race relations. I thought that Queequeg’s story about the mistaken finger bowl, and his noble act on the passage to Nantucket were two especially powerful sections supporting this by indicating (very loosely)a kind of cultural equality Queequeg’s individual goodness and ability to win over even the close-minded, ultimately giving Ishmael a healing faith in humanity. The mode through which this is communicated, (subjecting Queequeg to humor at his expense, multiple object-referential definitions, broad generalizations of all non-western peoples etc… ) remains problematic, but the tension between the wonderful progressive attitude, and deeply racist mindset of Melville and Ishmael gives us a singular reading from the modern perspective in which we are forced to examine psychological, historical, and linguistic forces, and the perspective through which we read is thrown into sharp relief. We read this novel with a varied awareness of influences on the author, text, and ourselves, are unable to read it otherwise, and the hermeneutics of the reading experience is brought to our attention in the process.

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