Chapter 54 takes place \u201cone saint\u2019s eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn,\u201d in Lima. The chapter mostly entails Ishmael telling a story about a sailor named Steelkilt. This story, however, is not relevant here. I would like to instead focus on Ishmael\u2019s compatriots and how Melville portrays Spaniards.<\/p>\n
Whereas we have explored many times over Melville\/Ishmael\u2019s view that, though savages, black people and Indians have many redeeming qualities. Chapter 54 does not treat Spaniards in such a nuanced or forgiving way. Though Ishmael\u2019s friends do not have many lines in the chapter, when they do<\/em> speak it is usually just to interrupt Ishmael\u2019s story with an ignorant or stereotype-reinforcing comment. Take, for example, the words of Don Pedro:<\/p>\n Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary land, we know but little of your vigorous North. [Herman Melville, Moby Dick]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is a patent contrast between words such as dull, lazy, and hereditary (\u201cof a kind established by tradition\u201d, according to Merriam-Webster\u2019s Dictionary) used to describe South American life and the vigorous life of New England. To the uninformed reader, South America sounds like a place filled with indolent slackers. By contrast, New England is filled with vital, quick-witted, hard-working individuals. Coincidentally, South America is filled with natives and Spaniards, while New England is populated mostly by whites. It would not have been difficult for a 19th<\/sup> Century reader to make the implied connection. Also, notice that the Spaniard <\/em>is calling himself<\/em> lazy. Had Melville portrayed a white character calling a Spaniard these things, we could dismiss him and the words as petty bigots. However, why would a Spaniard slander himself? These things must be true then.<\/p>\n Melville provides his white audience with more feel-good fun facts in that same chapter when he writes,<\/p>\n Lakeman! [a.k.a. Steelkilt]\u2014 Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?\u2019 said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass. [Herman Melville, Moby Dick]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Not only would Melville\u2019s audience get a good chuckle out of Don Sebastian\u2019s ignorance (\u201cWho doesn\u2019t know where Buffalo<\/em> is?\u201d), but he also slips in the fact that Don Sebastian is wearing what I can only assume is a grass skirt, though we have little reason to believe that Spanish sailors would dress significantly different from their New England counterparts. What an educational chapter– I never knew Spaniards were obsequious, lethargic, verdure-clad alcoholics!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chapter 54 takes place \u201cone saint\u2019s eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn,\u201d in Lima. The chapter mostly entails Ishmael telling a story about a sailor named Steelkilt. This story, however, is not relevant here. I would like to instead focus on Ishmael\u2019s compatriots and how Melville portrays Spaniards. Whereas we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","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=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}