Author Archives: Angelina Gonzalez

Whalers, Midwives, and Women’s Work: A moment of solidarity

Posted on by
Reply

In Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” an unexpected comparison is made between whaling and gendered female labor. This rare presence of femininity and work associated with women draws comparison between the difficulty of whaling, and birth and delivery; two lines of work famously undervalued and yet foundations to society, one providing life, the other providing light. Despite this lack of women, there is not a lack of the female presence, which Melville includes in the novel through imagery and conversations of midwifery, childbirth, and domestic labor. This is seen in Chapters 78: Cistern and Buckets, through comparisons of midwifery and whaling; as well as Chapter 94: A Squeeze of the Hand, through the communal experience of ‘milking’ the spermacetti; and the witnessing of mother whales feeding their newborn calves in Chapter 87: The Grand Armada. Melville’s inclusion of feminine labor alongside the importance of whaling emphasizes the knowledge and experience required by both careers and underscores these gendered fields of labor as the underpinnings of a functioning and complex society, without the loss of community connection and sophistication. 

In Chapter 78: Cistern and Buckets, where Midwifery and the whaling industry meet, the comparisons of the difficulty between these two professions create a moment of solidarity between feminine work, childbirth, and the dangerous work of whale harvesting at sea, traditionally done by men. Tashtego is placed in his position due to negligence but is blamed for his falling into the tun “Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular reasons;(374)” Much like in childbirth, the fault of a difficult pregnancy or delivery is placed not first on chance, but on the negligence of the mother. Ishmaels blames Tashtego, when in fact Stubbs, Starbuck, And Ahab, those in charge of the industry and work on the boat, are responsible for endangering and not securing their crewmen. Queequeg, of all characters, who is symbolic of the defiance of all presuppositions of the intelligence, bravery and capability of non-westerners (non-Europeans), is the one to perform this act of assisted birth and rescue. Not only is he special for the connection he forms with Ishmael, or of his selfless acts of bravery, but he is also a midwife; assisting in Tashtego’s watery rebirth from the Tun:

“He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;—he had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way—head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be expected (p.376).”

Alongside performing a c-section, by cutting in to rescue Tashtego, Queequeg also delivers him by performing a difficult medical procedure. The way that Tashtego was first positioned at the entrance of the Tun/womb, feet first, is called a breech position, in which the baby is usually in danger of injury or death by suffocation. Even in modern medicine this is considered a difficult birthing position for the fetus and mother, often resulting in the injury of the mother and tearing of the cervix. A skilled midwife, or obstetrician, is capable of either carefully following through with this birth position, or helping to turn the baby. In other words, Queequeg’s delivery of Tashtego was a feat of obstetrics even for what is possible on land (and with human babies). This feat of a delivery is acknowledged: 

“And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing(176).”

This is no small compliment to the profession of midwifery, which experienced an attack that spanned generations with the rise of the “man-midwife,”which Lisa Forman Cody coins in “The Politics of Reproduction: From Midwives’ Alternative Public Sphere to the Public Spectacle of Man-Midwifery.” to discuss the manner in which male doctors invaded the birthing space via the growing interest in the obstetric field within western medicine:

 “Into the eighteenth century, nearly all agreed that midwives had a “natural,” “innate” authority over generative matters because reproductive knowledge derived from personal, subjective, bodily experience. From the 1660s onward, scientific knowledge of reproductive matters and doctors’ ability to demonstrate the truth of analogies—that the reproduction of some lower life-forms was akin to that of humans, for instance—helped to undermine women’s epistemological and professional status as midwives. Obstetricians could only triumph once the fundamental intellectual and emotional connection between midwives and maternity was ruptured, as it largely was from the early eighteenth century onward.(Cody)”

A predominantly female profession which centered and involved feminine labor in the privacy of childbirth was invaded by male doctors whose foray into the field resulted in the publicization (through medical research) of a sanctified and private experience such as that of childbirth. The man-midwife, as Cody puts it, de-centered the importance of emotional and communal connection within the birthing space in favor of subjective reason and scientific practice; constructing a rigid and invasive epistemological branch of understanding childbirth and women’s bodies. Obstetrics further conquered the limited spaces women held as professionals with authority in the expertise of childbirth, who, despite their gendered work, held an important position:

 “The seventeenth-century midwife stood at the threshold between conjugal relations and the state; as such, she had a uniquely privileged position and a duty to serve both mothers and the community(Cody)”

 Midwifery was built through the knowledge gathered through the experience of assisting in childbirth, and was a trusted professional career that required constituents to be as well learned and well versed as any other male medical professional: “Like male participants in the public sphere, midwives read texts, sometimes kept notes, and shared their knowledge through apprenticeships and mutual discussions.”  This invasion into the realm of childbirth and dethroning of midwives by male-midwives was propelled by accusations and suspicions of midwives, their overly-sympathetic connections, and the supposed flaws within their epistemologically based understanding of childbirth. This replacement of midwifery with male-midwives throughout the 17th and 18th century systematically altered women’s health, medicine, and the realm of childbirth from then on.

The struggle experienced by the slow erasure of such a critical career, such as that of midwifery is echoed In “Moby Dick” and Ishmael’s concern over the shifting narrative over what is considered knowledge or knowing; the contents in a book or the worldly knowledge built over time by one’s own experiences:

“So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory(ch45, p.223).”

The contextual understanding of the position of midwives in the 17th and 18th century (and onwards) is relevant to discussing the similarities posed by Ishmael (Melville) between Whaling and midwives, which is that both were inherently critical to sustaining life; one delivering life, the other illuminating it, and yet both careers were considered to exist on the fringes of society, and yet, while conducted in seclusion or isolation, and both in gendered spaces, community was allowed to thrive outside the bounds or a rigid society while still maintaining hierarchy and order (for the most part in the case of the Pequod)

Cody writes about the the spheres that midwives operated within during assisted childbirth, and the communal collaboration that took place during the lying-in of a woman’s birthing experience: “participants in this space putatively left their socioeconomic status at the door and were allowed to enter if they possessed the requisite gender. Midwives were commoners, subordinate to elites outside the lying-in chamber, but once at delivery, women apparently abandoned such usual hierarchies for the tasks at hand. The head midwife directed the lying-in, but she and the other women at the birth worked and conversed together regardless of their rank.”

This in no small way mimics the hierarchy and the kinship between sailors built upon the microcosm of the Pequod, where at times even Ishmael commented on the domestic and feminine similarities of their shared labor aboard the ship. For example, Ishmel compares the gathering and squeezing of spermacetti to collecting milk, and being a dairy maid:

 “up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairy-maid’s pail of new milk (Ch 78, p.373).”

“As I crossed my hands in it, as in milking, I felt something of the same rhythmic squeeze a dairy-maid feels, only on a much larger and stranger scale.”

These two scenes in which ishmael uses feminine roles such as that of dairy maid, to describe the closeness of community while working upon the Pequod are significant, in male spheres finding a connecting link, or solidarity with women, even in isolation amongst men. This suggests that unlinke the apprehension of the patriarchal society that contributed to the slow decline of midwifery, men were able to empathize, connect, and find clarity within femininity and the expression of emotion. Another scene where femininity is present is with the communal and protective herd of mother whales witnessed by the crew of the Pequod giving birth and feeding their young calves: But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers.(Ch.87,p.423)

In “Moby Dick and Breastfeeding” Jessica Pressman writes about Melville’s ability to capture the intimacy, fears, and complexity of nursing mothers through this scene, and writes: “In this moment, our narrator’s vision becomes everyone’s (“our eyes as we gazed over the side”), and we (the reader included) finally see whales not as prey, commodities, or monsters but as living, loving, nursing beings. It is a moment of serenity and humanity, but the humanness is located with the whales, not the men. Female whales, mothers nursing.” In this deeply intimate moment that the crew is made privy to the inner working lives of mothering whales and nursing young, despite their being an interrupting force ready to attack, Ishmael, and by extent of the argument;the whalers, come closer to understanding a question posed : “The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability to express it. At times, there are gestures in it, which, though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures…Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never”

Though Ishmael struggles to comprehend the whale through these various chapters, he comes very close to understanding the bigger picture present in this scene of the Grand Armada, which is that the view is unobstructed if he is capable of looking and understanding. Though capitalism is the ultimate driving force behind this endeavor on the Pequod, there are still moments of solidarity between the whalers aboard the ship and their female counterparts, the women who toil on land, called midwives, who are involved in the daily delivery of new life. It is through the empathy and understanding of experience that these whalers have gained at sea, that they can connect and understand the complex innerworking’s of the labor conducted by midwives and mothers, as well as the community it takes to deliver new life.

Works Cited:

Cody, Lisa Forman. “The Politics of Reproduction: From Midwives’ Alternative Public Sphere to the Public Spectacle of Man-Midwifery.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 32 no. 4, 1999, p. 477-495. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ecs.1999.0033.

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick: Or, The Whale. Edited by Andrew Delbanco and Tom Quirk, Penguin

Publishing Group, 2003.Pressman, Jessica. “Moby Dick and Breastfeeding.” Avidly, 20 Aug. 2020, avidly.org/2020/08/20/moby-dick-and-breastfeeding/. ‌

Final Take-aways

Posted on by
1

Hi Everyone! I wanted to say thank you to Professor Pressman, and everyone in class for providing such a wonderful experience reading this book. I can’t lie and say that it was not a challenge, because it definitely was, but I think that this epic monstrosity of a book and its difficulty made the experience all the more amazing. My experience with this book is far from over, and I know that even after getting through this book this semester, I’ll need to come back to it eventually. I’m already planning on watching a bunch of film adaptations during winter break!

I consider myself lucky to have read this book in such a supportive setting, where even if I struggled to understand, our discussions in class assisted in helping me to not only decipher the confusing places Melville would take us, but to look deeper into the text and see the symbolism and references that made this novel so wonderful. It was truly a Jigsaw puzzle of a of a book, but one that I was not alone in completing! I felt pushed and pulled in my effort to take this book further in our discussions, which although was difficult, encouraged me to better writer and reader.

I confess, that if I had been reading this book alone I would have put it down and not have returned for a long time, which would have sucked! Reading and discussing this novel in a group setting felt so much like a book club, rather than a typical english class, and I felt it was so much more engaging, to the point that I looked forward to coming to class, and hearing everyone’s thought’s and ideas! Thank you for sharing this space with me, and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did! I hope you all have a happy holiday season!

Week 15: The Anatomy of Melville’s Fame

Posted on by
1

Finally, we have some insight into why Moby Dick, may not have been as popular as Melville had hoped. The British hated it, or as O.W. Riegel puts it, “were unable to see it as “anything more than a poorly constructed whaling story(196).” His novel was “tested against the canons of unity, coherence, and emphasis (196),” and within this lens could not have had any hope of succeeding.

These criticisism’s definitely make sense, Melville tested us in class, with his ability to weave this story in every possible direction, enlightening us and then leaving us grasping through water, and debris from the deconstruction of the Pequod. We can apreciate this novel now for what it was, an intentionally experiemental novel, of which now many abound, and can point to this great American novel, as its forefather, the most experimental of all experimental novels.

Riegel’s reconstruction of how it was received by the literary community provided the context for what Melville was going up against, and why it was unappreciated: it was going against the English literary canon “tested against the canons of unity, coherence, and emphasis. (196).” However, instead of attempting to measure up to the great literary creations of authors past, Melville resisted and created something entirely new, not just a book about whaling (action), but about whaling (industry), completely reliant on the labor it gently coaxed and roughly extorted from free, enslaved, and ostracized people. He commented on the most important issues of his time, and even of ours, so many years in the future, using the novel to reflect the people he was speaking to, Americans.

Final Project Proposal

Posted on by
1

For my final project proposal, I wanted to analyze the symbolism of the fossil whale, or the whale as an artifact and history, through an essay. As stated in the asynchronous peer review, I’ll discuss the implications of Ishmael’s description of the whale as an archaeological site, both as living and as dead (fossil). My focus will be on ch104: The Fossil Whale. I want to emphasize the conversations on history that are had in this book, the deconstruction of what counts as history, what gets told, and what gets tossed under the rug of time.

Thesis: Ishmael discusses the validity of the ‘American’ historical canon through the body of the whale, or “the fossil whale”. Whales have a deeper connection to the scope of American history as a continent, especially to the original hunters before colonization (the spear found in a whale). As a fossil, the whale is borderless, traversing the watery world, and leaving its print among the land, part of a momentary recession of the waterline. The whale, in this sense, dismantles the American idealism of permanence and ownership over a continent during an age of border expansion.

wk 14: A work in progress…

Posted on by
1

I want to extend my discussion of fossils, and the fossil whale, or the whale as an artifact and history, through an essay. To do this I wanted to incorporate other mentions of the whale as an archeological site, besides my original focus on ch104: The fossil whale. I want to emphasize the conversations on history that are had in this book, which requires some deep diving and recalling throughout the scope of this book. The reason I wanted to focus on this topic is because,, as a lover of history, I was drawn to the deconstruction of what counts as history, what gets told and what gets tossed under the rug of time. 

Thesis under construction: Ishmael discusses the validity of the ‘american’ historical canon through the body of the whale, or “the fossil whale”. Whales have a deeper connection to the scope of American history as a continent, especially to the original hunters before colonization (the spear found in a whale). As a fossil, the whale is borderless, traversing the watery world, and leaving it’s print among the land, part of a momentary recession of the waterline. The whale, in this sense, dismantles the American canon of permanence and ownership over a continent during an age of border expansion.

This is a very early version of my thesis, as you can see, I’m still very caught between the fossil v history, and the fossil v borders/maps. 

Childbirth, Midwifery, and Gendered Labor

Posted on by
Reply

In Chapter 78: Cistern and Buckets, Tashtego falls into the tun of the whale while collecting Spermacetti. Ishmael describes his being rescued by Queequeg as a delivery, and thus the men of the Pequod are privy to the feminine line of work involved in birth, which men are often excluded from witnessing. This rare presence of femininity and work associated with women draws comparison between the difficulty of whaling and birth and delivery, two lines of work famously undervalued and yet foundations to society, one providing life, the other providing light. 

In this chapter, where Midwifery and the whaling industry meet, the comparisons of the difficulty between these two professions create a moment of solidarity between feminine work, childbirth and the dangerous work of whale harvesting at sea, traditionally done by men. Tashtego is placed in his position due to negligence but is blamed for his falling into the tun “Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular reasons;(374)” Much like in childbirth, the fault of a difficult pregnancy or delivery is placed not first on chance, but on the negligence of the mother. Ishmaels blames Tashtego, when infact Stubbs, Starbuck, And Ahab, those in charge of the industry and work on the boat, are responsible for endangering and not securing their crewmen.

Queequeg, of all characters, who is symbolic of the defiance of all presuppositions of the intelligence, bravery and capability of non-westerners (non-Europeans), is the one to perform this act of assisted birth and rescue. Not only is he special for the connection he forms with Ishmael, or of his selfless acts of bravery, but he is also a midwife; assisting in Tashtego’s watery rebirth from the Tun:

“He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;—he had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way—head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be expected (p.376).”

The way that Tashtego was first positioned at the entrance of the Tun/womb, feet first, is called a breech position, in which the baby is usually in danger of injury or death by suffocation. Even in modern medicine this is considered a difficult birthing position for the fetus and mother, often resulting in the injury of the mother and tearing of the cervix. A skilled midwife, or obstetrician, is capable of either carefully following through with this birth position, or helping to turn the baby. In other words, Queequeg’s delivery of Tashtego was a feat of obstetrics even for what is possible on land (and with human babies). This feat of a delivery is acknowledged: 

“And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing(176).”

Midwifes, who hold a gendered job, done in seclusion with mothers in birth, and the difficulty of assisting in labor with the chance of two deaths looming over their heads, is acknowledged by Ishmael as a profession requiring as much bravery and braun as “fencing, boxing, riding, rowing” the lauded professions and past times of men. Queequegs delivery introduces the men onboard to the quick wit, and bravery required of a widwife, and for a moment, as they observe this wonder, the border between gendered labor, and those skills required in each are blurred, and the solidarity between these two professions is secured by the knowledge that both jobs are deserving of acknowledgment as heroic and legendary.

Ch 133: The Chase, but first the doubloon

Posted on by
5

In Chapter 133: The Chase–First Day, Ahab sights Moby Dick at the same time as all three lookouts, and yet claims the doubloon for himself, robbing Tashtego of a victory that all aboard the pequad were motivated to claim from the start of the voyage: 

“‘I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I cried out,’ said Tashtego. ‘Not the same instant; not the same—no, the doubloon is mine, Fate reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have raised the White Whale first(p.595).” 

This comes as no surprise, as at this time Ishmael has gone over the concept of Fast-Fish loose fish and the seedy legal territory of ownership. Ahab has weaponized the promise of the doubloon as treasure, as a promise of wealth and accomplishment, and after having taken advantage of the labor and loyalty of the men on board, shown again that no one matters aboard the pequad, no one own the right to ownership, but him.

At the same time, this moment in which Ahab made a pact with the men on board, which he himself dishonored, is a call to the way the United States has a history of using agreements as a way to take advantage of Indigenous American tribes, and disregard treaties in favor of capitalism and industry. This isn’t a new occurance, a man in power taking advantage of the people he has made promise too, and Melville is reminding his readers of our nation founded on lies and land grants.

Besides Ahab has no need for the promise of wealth, when what he means is to become legend, and the men on the ship are not men, but a means to an end in killing Moby Dick, and attaining his glory. He reminds them once again of their place as he pursues the whale, and with it death, threatening his men: the first thing that but offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me.— Where’s the whale? gone down again.”

Following this vein of thought, Melville using the Pequod as a means to talk about the nation state discusses the foundations of American history, and our legacy, one frought with the bodies of sacrificial lambs, or of those deemed expendable or standing in the way of the government and manifest destiny.

Week 12: Ahab and Pip

Posted on by
2

Human connection and healing are anchors that Ahab can not afford to entertain in his monomaniac quest to kill the whale. The flowering of a friendship, forged by madness and understanding, between Ahab and Pip, is destroyed when Ahab goes back on his promise to keep Pip close and excuses him from his Cabin.

For a moment, there was what was beginning to be a father-son-like relationship between Ahab and Pip. Gardiner reminds Ahab of his responsibilities, not just to his crew, but to his family, which he has abandoned by going on this dead-end quest. Ahab perhaps closes himself off after this interaction, where he turned down aiding Gardiner in his quest for his son lost at sea, for the pursuit of Moby Dick. It is telling of how important this new father-son relationship has become to Ahab, enough so that Ahab must realize that following this quest must mean the endangerment of his new son. It is powerful enough that Ahab must abandon Pip, although it hurts him to do so: 

“There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady. Like curers like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health.”

 Ahab and Pip have endured an injury to the mind and the soul that has been disregarded by all those on crew as madness, but is better known to you and me as mental illness. No one has been able to understand and reach Ahab, but Pip, who is injured further by this abandonment and stripping of his identity, being shown what it is to love and belong to someone. Pip is such a fragile character, and it hurts me, as it does Ahab, to see him suffer this disillusionment. Pip becomes Ahab’s one weakness because he becomes his cure. 

Week 11: Chapter 104, The Fossil Whale

Posted on by
2

In chapter 104, we go deeper into history; past the start of time and reign of man, and discuss the aged pedigree of the whale through fossils found on land all over the world. Ishmael, is a student of the world, and his knowledge learned through experiences and observation. Not only is he a student of the ocean, but of the earth and its history. He is a geologist, or has enough experience discovering fossils in his time digging cisterns, to give credit to the discoveries of whale fossils, in the Alabama, England, France, etc.

After numerous chapters spent on ripping apart and harvesting the whale, we are engulfed in this affirmation of the whale as having once been the dominant creature, found all over the world on land, which has only recently existed above water, and allowed humans to crawl upon the shore and reign supreme over nature. As Ishmael stands on the bones of processed whales, he imagines a time in which the Whale ruled:

“I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for time began with man. Here Saturn’s grey chaos rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; when wedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and in all the 25,000 miles of this world’s circumference, not an inhabitable hand’s breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world was the whale’s; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree like Leviathan? Ahab’s harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh’s. Methuselah seems a schoolboy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must needs exist after all humane ages are over.”

The presence of the whale supersedes that of the history of mans great figures, kings, and empires, and is positioned as a godly figure; later Ishmael mentions that there are temples of whale bone where men go to worship God. The Fossil, is the ‘antemosaic’ or the unknowable history of the earth imprinted upon the land as a reminder that time did not being with the creation of man, whereas humans have used mosaicas to portray history, nature, and the activities of man. The leviathans reign however, is not over, as this lineage of adaptation has kept them in the water for a reason, which means that despite the effort of humans to hunt them for sport or industry, these godly-monsters will survive them when the earth is again submerged into a watery realm. The only question, is if humans will be able to adapt, where the whale’s genetic lineage has perfected him for this future and past.  

Chapter 78: Queequeg the Midwife; or breech v. breach

Posted on by
3


This chapter was a welcome one, helping to liven Ishmael’s last few detailed chapters, where he pondered the sperm and right whales contrasted views. Here we regain some action, and are faced with the consequences of human clumsiness which leads Tashtego to fall in to the whales Tun. I was very fond of Ishmael’s description of Queequeg coming to the rescue, of a scene that quickly spiraled out of control: “The next, a loud splash announced that my brave Queequeg had dived to the rescue (375).”

Like the rest on board of the Pequod, I read on with bated breath, hoping this was not the end of Queequeg’s journey. Luckily he emerged with Tashtego in hand, and subsequently, through Ishmael, we were able to read of the nature of this rescue. 

Much like we have discussed in class, this story is famously absent, but not completely devoid  of women and their presence. For this reason, I bring attention to the fact that Queequeg, of all characters, who is symbolic of the defiance of all presuppositions of the intelligence, bravery and capability of non-westerners (non-Europeans), is the one to perform this act of assisted birth. Not only is he special for the connection he forms with Ishmael, or of his selfless act’s of bravery, but he is also a midwife; assisting in Tashtego’s watery rebirth from the Tun:

“He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;—he had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way—head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be expected (p.376).”

I’d like to note, that in terms of giving birth, the way that Tashtego was first positioned at the entrance of the Tun/womb, feet first, Is called a breech position, in which the baby is usually in danger of injury or death by suffocation. Even in modern medicine this is considered a difficult birthing position for the fetus and mother, often resulting in the injury of the mother and tearing of the cervix. A skilled midwife, or obstetrician, is capable of either carefully following through with this birth position, or helping to turn the baby. In other words, Queequegs delivery of Tashtego was a feat of obstetrics even for what is possible on land (and with human babies). 

Ishmael, seems knowledgable of the naming of this breech position in medical terminology, and it’s contrasted meaning of the homophone breach, which means to break or split open, and which is commonly associated with describing whales breaking the surface of the water as they come up for air. Ironically, he notes, the great head of the dead whale is sinking, rather than coming up for air. 

I bring back to attention Queequeg, and the fact that he is the one that conducts this emergency delivery. I think it say’s something of Queequeg’s knowledge that he was able to convey this delivery from the difficult position which he and Tashtego were placed in, both sinking (as the knowledge of gynecology we now know to be expanded upon the experiments on enslaved Black women in the United States).

However, it also says something about the limitations of man, and how their plunder of natural resources comes at the expense of the death and endangerment of Mother Nature, as childbirth is a consequence of the ability to give life, and which endangers the lives of the mother. There is more to be said about the connotations of the honeyed substance of spermacetti, which Ishmaels likens Tashtego’s close call with death, as a ‘very precious perishing’. For now, I leave it on the discussions of childbirth, and the dangers of giving birth, which the men of the Pequod are faced with, with the perils of harvesting whales, in a way most men never are with women’s bodies.