I really found chapter 35 interesting because there were several allusions to the conscious and unconscious that Ishmael channels from when explaining the experience of the mast with the high winds. In consciousness, he realizes that, and to paraphrase, uneventfulness is witnessed when there is no news, or extras’, indicating entertainment and consumerism that feeds off of people’s souls. There is one particular text he says, which is: “…it is much deplored that the place which you devote so considerable a portion of…your natural life, should be so sadly destitute of anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness… a comfortable localness of feeling…a bed, a hammock, a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit….” This text in particular is critical because it challenges artificial, man-made transcendence through these mediums of vanity and how we as humans are wired to find comfort in sedentary life fascinated by consumerism. In this way, the author warns us that we become too comfortable to actually be our full potential as we isolate and hide in these mediums for comfort. ‘Cosy inhabitiveness’ contradicts itself as both words are nothing alike, juxtaposing themselves and working against. This is written into the line in order to convey “otherness” to the medium, making readers realize that the comfort we often resort to in society is almost always consumed in media to make us feel elated and transcended. By doing so, we do ourselves the disservice of breaking free from toxic consumerism/ advertisements telling people how to live their lives in order to gain money out of people’s worldviews. This becomes dangerous as we breath in media and make it a social propaganda that divides instead of reframes conceptual ideas and infrastructure.

In chapter 25, Ishmael sounds like he has had enough with how people view workers in the whale industry. By using analogy of whalers as significant roles that generate society, he also gets caught up in not seeing how he unintentionally sabotages their role by indirectly subjecting their role for the sole lives of the upper class. He states that, “It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is gone through…Can it be…that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint their machinery?… As a general rule, he can’t amount to much in his totality”(Melville 123). These lines resonate with my last blog post on the etymology and extracts of the novel–discussing whales as something more than objects under capitalism, but animals that are cleverly invested under the nation– because as Ishmael tries to not ‘lay his treasures on earth’ as captain Peleg does, there is the unfortunate tragedy hidden in these chapters where he still tries to define his individuality under earthly status and approval of nobility. The next chapters–26 and 27– provide more insight into the sailors, almost dictating them under pawn status of the king. ‘Seasoning them for their designated functions’ adds to the sailor’s pawn role, subjecting them to merely surpress their emotions and complexities as humans in order to guarantee whaling success out in the seas. The chapters expose how their past trials and tribulations desensitized their emotions, reverting back to how the text also “anoints machinery with oil”, interestingly connecting to how the men on the ship become machinery that is already used to the difficult circumstances on the ship.

From reading chapters 4-12, Ishmael’s affection for his roommate, Queepeg, grows strong because of his oddities and peculiarities that are not touched by societal conventions. In addition, his touch makes Ishmael question his identity and things from his past with his stepmother, yearning for reciprocation that he never had in terms of maternal care. It is interesting that Melville writes “stepmother”, emphasizing maternal care that is seemingly not real for the character, making us readers to also diagnose his freudian condition.

While Melville sets us up as behaviorial therapists, the book makes it clear that Ishmael registers information through the ego– through symbols he knows in his life to be true, but now reevaluates those same symbols. This egocentric mindset he has is present when othering Queepeg and the ways he carries himself.”He was just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner”(Melville 31). Here, Ishmael senses that the way he operates is based outside the symbols and body languages he is often used to seeing, increasing his affinity for the unconventional Queepeg displays outwardly. Showing off his outlandishness in an odd way alludes to how Ishmael is secretly obsessed with wanting to break through the barrier of conventional he functions in, understanding that Queepeg is intelligent, but also a calculated cannibal. Ishmael’s secret obsession with Queepeg is instigated further when he attempts to other him through the same misunderstanding tone he conveys in the last text above. When reading the room, Ishmael notes: “Queepeg sat there…, it so chanced… To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding…(Melville 34)” This particular tone in the text is dehumanizing, but exposes how vulnerable Ishmael is about Queepeg’s presence. In a sense, it could be projection because Ishmael knows he is walking into danger with a powerful yet odd being. The imagery of them as roommates and Ishmael developing some unresolved feelings, with the fact that Queepeg is revealed as calculated paints the picture of who really is the prey being dehumanized as someone powerless. Besides Ishmael’s liking for Queepeg and their dynamic present in the book, the chapter names kind of sound like we are operating in Ishamel’s mind throughout the course of the events. At one point, the names go from “Breakfast” to “Street” to “Chapel”, and so on, as if we are moving along in his perspective, recording and capturing events. This type of perspective really emphasizes how we operate through common symbols and language, pointing out striking strange things in our line of sight throughout the day.