Feb 08 2010
Daggoo, the African
I decided to analyze Melville’s description of Daggoo and his subsequent commentary on slavery during the 19th century. A passage from Chapter 27 on page 114 provides an in depth description of Daggoo and his role as an African on the whaling ship.
“Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black negro-savage, … with a lion-like tread – an Ahasuerus to behold. Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called them ring-bolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler…Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, and erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six feet five in his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at him; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to beg truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man beside him.”
There is a lot to say about this description of Daggoo, but I want to highlight that, as an African tribesman who “voluntarily shipped” Daggoo functions in the novel as the symbolic replacement for much more common figures who don’t actually show up in the novel. These figures who Melville is alluding to are African-American slaves or descendant of slaves who were kidnapped from Africa and brought to the American South. Ironically, Daggoo is portrayed as both powerful and barbaric in this passage. Melville uses derogatory and somewhat racist descriptors such as ‘coal-black negro-savage’ as well as fear invoking terms that somehow induce a certain level of respect such as ‘imperial negro’.
Ironically, when Melville entertains the idea of Daggoo’s position in comparison to white men, Daggoo prevails as a powerful ‘fortress’. In doing so, Melville is challenging the idea of slavery and submission of the Africans to white men. By describing Flask as a chess-man strongly invokes a reversal of roles and addresses society’s contemporary understanding of racial dynamics. Despite this reversal of roles it is important to point out the fact that Daggoo is still diminished by Melville’s initial description and forever defined by his ‘savage’ ways, such as the ‘ring bolts’ suspended from his ears. Melville provides a unique insight into the blatant divide between the ‘white men’ and the ‘savages’ both within the hierarchical dynamics of the whaling ship and within 19th century society.
Considering that Melville wrote Moby Dick in 1851, when slavery was a major issue in America, and that the novel reveals signs of thoughtfully considering race, it is interesting that there aren’t any slaves in the story at all – just different types of stand-ins for them.
One Response to “Daggoo, the African”
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Susannah, I think it’s great that you noticed that Daggoo “voluntarily shipped” as opposed to being taken as a slave. When I read that, I read right over it and missed the greater yet subtler meaning. I was hoping you would say more about that, however. For example, is it an indication of some twisted wisdom that Daggoo volunteered to travel with whites (the people who had helped enslave millions of other Africans) or is it a sign of treachery? There is more evidence to support the former interpretation, as Ishmael/Melville tend to praise rather than slander Daggoo, but the latter is worth a mention, at least in a 21st Century read of the passage. After all, Ishmael may have found it only natural for Daggoo to want to leave the “Dark Continent”, but to us it indicates that he left (abandoned, even?) his home and family for the whaling life.
However, I found it apropos, not ironic, that Melville conjoined savagery and strength here. Even the most unfavorable read of Moby Dick, with respect to race, would have difficulty arguing that Melville believes Africans to be physically superior to whites. But considering that Melville was writing in the 19th Century, I don’t think that calling Daggoo a coal-black negro-savage is racist. To Melville, this was simply the truth. Coal-black is simply a shade of black, and savage (mostly) meant that he was a tribesman.
I also agree with what you said about Flask being a chess piece. Taking the chess comparison a bit further, weak ineffectual Flask would be a pawn, whereas the “fortress” Daggoo would be a rook—a much better piece.