Professor Friedman commented in class that Melville was not thought of as a political or cultural writer. Ishmael’s numerous comments, however,\u00a0about his impressions of Queequeg, a cannibal and a “savage,” indicate otherwise. Indeed,\u00a0writing a book that seems willing to take on most issues about the human condition,\u00a0Melville does not exclude the particularly touchy subject of race on the eve of the civil war. Melville encapsulates the problem when Ishmael writes “But savages are strange beings; at times you do not know exactly how to take them” (48-49). Let me not try to get in over my head, but the\u00a0issue of how much latitude to give people different from\u00a0oneself, or “savages,”\u00a0endures. With imperialism, or any means of subjugation, Americans saw the imminently-conquered\u00a0practicing totally foreign habits.\u00a0The\u00a0few more tolerant granted them their difference, making limited worth judgements on them as people, while\u00a0most\u00a0used\u00a0the easy definition of “different” as\u00a0inferior, rationalization to subjugate them. And I would contend further that this issue continues today. Liberal sociologists\u00a0maintain that inner-city\u00a0high school\u00a0students don’t succeed in school solely because of their environment, while more conservative thinkers are\u00a0comfortable to make some judgement about\u00a0their nature dooming them.\u00a0I digress:\u00a0Ishmael experiences his problem firsthand with Queequeg. Irrespective of his introduction to Queequeg, outfitted with his tomahawk\u00a0in addition to his\u00a0imposing stature,\u00a0compounded on\u00a0the news that\u00a0he actually goes around selling heads (did I read that right?), Ishmael\u00a0has presuppositions and biases against the character of people like Queequeg.\u00a0Melville certainly doesn’t make it easy for\u00a0us to be\u00a0completely pro-Queequeg\u00a0when he is a\u00a0cannibal, but\u00a0while\u00a0the descriptor “cannibal” may in fact just be an accurate term for Queequeg, when conflated with “savage” it takes on its negative connotations. Despite his view, allowing the reader to experience and even\u00a0share a bit of racism, Ishmael\u00a0includes\u00a0many\u00a0of the virtues of\u00a0Queequeg. They abound\u00a0our reading for Wednesday, but\u00a0a couple\u00a0of my favorites were from The Counterpane.\u00a0Ishmael writes, after Queequeg gives him the privacy to dress, “this is a very civilized overture; but, the truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are” (27). While Ishmael missed the mark with the word “civilized,” he\u00a0nailed it with “delica[te],” or, considerate. Goodness does not\u00a0stem from\u00a0“civilization,” (just think of\u00a0stingy, “pious” Bildad)\u00a0and Ishmael shows signs of acknowledging that.\u00a0And even if he doesn’t\u00a0acknowledge it\u00a0quite yet, he allows us to. \u00a0Similarly, on the next page, Ishmael includes an instance of Queequeg’s good sense. Unlike how\u00a0a Christian man applies his ablutions, Queequeg uses his harpoon to shave. Though Ishmael regarded it negatively at the time, later he\u00a0admires Queequeg’s resoucefulness and handy use of very sharp steel, giving him a very close shave. Again, we are invited to as well. At the very least, if Melville doesn’t have\u00a0some political agenda, I don’t know who does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Professor Friedman commented in class that Melville was not thought of as a political or cultural writer. Ishmael’s numerous comments, however,\u00a0about his impressions of Queequeg, a cannibal and a “savage,” indicate otherwise. Indeed,\u00a0writing a book that seems willing to take on most issues about the human condition,\u00a0Melville does not exclude the particularly touchy subject of […]<\/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-96","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\/96","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=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/97"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}