It is quite clear from the beginning of this novel that Melville views whaling and seafaring as a man\u2019s world; in the description of the boarders,<\/p>\n
\u201c[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\u2026\u201d (p. 29);<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s honorable relatives:<\/p>\n
\u201cHis 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\u201d (p. 53);<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
the women gain status only by the men they align themselves with.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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 \u201cmurder\u201d 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<\/em> endeavor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is quite clear from the beginning of this novel that Melville views whaling and seafaring as a man\u2019s world; in the description of the boarders, \u201c[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\u2026\u201d (p. 29); this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","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=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}