There are three chapters in a row \u2013 \u201cThe Chapel,\u201d \u201cThe Pulpit,\u201d and \u201cThe Sermon\u201d \u2013 all dedicated to religion and Ishmael\u2019s interaction with faith and church.\u00a0 We may learn more about Ishmael\u2019s beliefs, however, from his reaction to Queequeg\u2019s religious rituals.\u00a0 Queequeg is certainly what the white Christian American of the 1850\u2019s would call a savage \u2013 his most frequent religious act is to worship a wooden Congo Idol baby.\u00a0 Ishmael tempers his unexpected affinity for Queequeg by persistently referencing his otherness \u2013 he is a \u201ccomely looking cannibal\u201d (43), \u201cjust enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner\u201d (47), and so on.<\/p>\n
But instead of using religion as a trope to highlight a savage vs. civilized, pagan vs. Christian paradox that relegates \u201cothers\u201d to sub-human status, Ishmael uses his religion to do the opposite.\u00a0 \u201cI 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\u201d (102).\u00a0 Not only does he equalize the \u201csavage\u201d Queequeg as a fellow-mortal, he says this is the good Presbyterian thing to do.\u00a0 This short passage was likely unsettling to readers who considered themselves good Christians and who looked down upon \u201csavages\u201d like Queequeg for their strange, exotic, violent, uncivilized behavior, along with their pagan rituals.\u00a0 Based on his relationship with a savage that started as his bed-mate, Ishmael rejects any hierarchical view of religion: \u201cHeaven have mercy on us all \u2013 Presbyterians and Pagans alike \u2013 for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending\u201d (102).<\/p>\n
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 \u201csavages\u201d are often not very different at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are three chapters in a row \u2013 \u201cThe Chapel,\u201d \u201cThe Pulpit,\u201d and \u201cThe Sermon\u201d \u2013 all dedicated to religion and Ishmael\u2019s interaction with faith and church.\u00a0 We may learn more about Ishmael\u2019s beliefs, however, from his reaction to Queequeg\u2019s religious rituals.\u00a0 Queequeg is certainly what the white Christian American of the 1850\u2019s would call […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,1],"tags":[162,168,169],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-uncategorized","tag-ishmael","tag-queequeg","tag-savage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}