Something I found most interesting, and in a way, quite entertaining was Ishmael’s obsession with his roommate- the harpooner, Queequeg, as seen in Chapter 3. He only knows about this mysterious man from what the landlord had told him, and was already forming ideas about him even though he had not met him yet. Whether the landlord was telling the truth or just trying to scare him, Ishmael should’ve formed his own opinions on the harpooner through his own experience with him. This can relate to society, both then and even now, about how people should go out and gain their own experience so they could think for themselves rather than listening and going based on other men’s thinking. Ishmael says, ”Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room…” (pg 24). When you don’t know something, you fear it. And like Ishmael here, because he was unfamiliar with the man, he started panicking and freaking out. He was psyching himself out for nothing, for example when Queequeg was telling him to get into bed, Ishmael says about him, “He really did this in not only a civil but a really kind and charitable way” (pg 26).

He also goes on to say after meeting him that, “the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian” (pg 26). Ishmael was getting scared of his roommate for no reason because he ended up being a nice man anyways. This is why it is important to, yes, take other’s opinions into consideration but to also go out and gain the experience yourself, that way forming your own opinions and thoughts are true and genuine. I also want to add that Ishmael jumping to conclusions was also reasonable. He is going to be sharing a bed with a complete stranger. So, it is understandable to think the worst.