Moby Dick

“I’ll try a pagan friend,” Ishmael says matter-of-factly on page 49 of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick. Melville presents Ishmael as an example for his readers in the subject of race. At times Ishmael acts as a race-relations role model, and at others he represents the audience’s faulty ideas about race.

As soon as Ishmael hears that the harpooneer with whom he is to share a bed is dark-complexioned, he becomes suspicious. However, he does not immediately think about race differences, and continues to worry mainly about his bedfellow’s unattractive harpooneer qualities.

When Ishmael lays eyes on Queequeg for the first time, he sees that the dark complexion is not solely a tan, and that Queequeg is in fact of a different race. This realization changes everything and Ishmael becomes frightened. Instead of thinking of his new companion as a “head-peddling harpooneer” (19), Ishmael calls Queequeg a “purple rascal” and an “abominable savage” and concludes that “had not the stranger stood between [him] and the door, [he] would have bolted out of it” (21).

Melville slips in a lesson to his readers at this point. In explaining his terror, Ishmael states: “Ignorance is the parent of fear” (21). Ishmael reflects the audience in that his lack of knowledge about Queequeg causes his fear. Melville’s readers should take away from this passage that they have nothing to fear of other races and should simply learn about them. They will learn that they are not so different.

With one polite act, Queequeg wins Ishmael’s affection. Ishmael concludes that “cannibals,” or “savages” are not so bad after all. Ishmael’s appreciation for Queequeg is a huge step in the right direction, but at the same time opens up a new can of worms.

In describing Queequeg, Ishmael generalizes people like him. He says things like “these savages have an innate sense of delicacy” (27). Ishmael does not think of them as individuals, but decides that since Queequeg can be polite, his whole tribe, or even the entire race, must also be polite. Most likely Queequeg’s race has both polite and rude individuals, just like white people. Ishmael does not think of them as “just like white people,” however, so allows himself to make generalizations.

In the quote with which I opened this post, the line from page 49, Ishmael makes yet another generalization. He has befriended a pagan, a savage, a man who is a different race. Ishmael feels pretty good about himself for that. What a good Christian man he is for befriending a pagan! While Ishmael is in fact ahead of his time, and it was a good thing for him to get along with Queequeg despite their differences, Ishmael is again not thinking of Queequeg as an individual. In that statement, he counts Queequeg as just some pagan he can befriend to feel good about himself.

Ishmael, like Melville’s readers, is imperfect. On page 31 he still judges people by their color. He explains that “in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners, savages outright.” Ishmael sees them simply standing and chatting, so how can he make a judgment on them, except by the color of their skin? Ishmael has made progress for his time and environment, but there is still work to be done.

Melville uses Ishmael to teach his readers about true acceptance. Ishmael demonstrates that overcoming society’s racial separations is a difficult feat. He has taken the first step in conquering prejudices by accepting Queequeg, but he undoubtedly has more attitude changes to make. Melville presses upon his readers that superficial changes are not enough. They can befriend people of different races, and claim to unprejudiced all they want, but it may not necessarily be so. Melville calls for deeper change, and maybe one day we can all be friends.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Signet Classic, 1998.

There are three chapters in a row – “The Chapel,” “The Pulpit,” and “The Sermon” – all dedicated to religion and Ishmael’s interaction with faith and church.  We may learn more about Ishmael’s beliefs, however, from his reaction to Queequeg’s religious rituals.  Queequeg is certainly what the white Christian American of the 1850’s would call a savage – his most frequent religious act is to worship a wooden Congo Idol baby.  Ishmael tempers his unexpected affinity for Queequeg by persistently referencing his otherness – he is a “comely looking cannibal” (43), “just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner” (47), and so on.

But instead of using religion as a trope to highlight a savage vs. civilized, pagan vs. Christian paradox that relegates “others” to sub-human status, Ishmael uses his religion to do the opposite.  “I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects” (102).  Not only does he equalize the “savage” Queequeg as a fellow-mortal, he says this is the good Presbyterian thing to do.  This short passage was likely unsettling to readers who considered themselves good Christians and who looked down upon “savages” like Queequeg for their strange, exotic, violent, uncivilized behavior, along with their pagan rituals.  Based on his relationship with a savage that started as his bed-mate, Ishmael rejects any hierarchical view of religion: “Heaven have mercy on us all – Presbyterians and Pagans alike – for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending” (102).

Even before his story has moved to the ship, Melville is making the argument that men of different backgrounds and religions can live as equals, and that “savages” are often not very different at all.