In the book Moby Dick, author Herman Melville uses the development of human relations to critique American society as a whole, building off the inability to determine differences between races and ethnicities to create a nation that is incomplete in its understanding of one another. Throughout Moby Dick, the reader can see the tension or heartfelt companionship between different characters, most of their relations quite intriguing when compared to the time. Most notable is the relationship between the narrator, Ishmael – a white, middle-class, Presbyterian Christian – and Queequeg, a black, Pagan cannibal. Melville uses the evolution of Ishmael and Queequeg’s relationship to illustrate how curiosity and lack of fear of the unknown serve as a fundamental factor in personal growth and the bettering of the United States as a nation built on ignorance, showing how a willingness to understand what is unfamiliar to a person can transform ignorance and prejudice into mutual understanding and respect.
Chapter four of the book is the most notable for the strange and rather rushed companionship between Ishmael and Queequeg, though it is not the focus of this essay. The narrator’s lack of information regarding his new roommate at the Spouter Inn dissolves into a state of pure panic; who could this man be? A murderer? A savage? Of what race or occupation could he have been? With little information on who Queequeg actually was – even the lack of his name earlier in the book – Ishmael resorts to outbursts of fear and anger, demanding to know who he is to be roomed with. Upon reveal, his own prejudice in regards to black individuals and cannibals from never-before-seen islands of the South Pacific Ocean, Ishmael cannot help but be both terrorized and enraged. Though very subtle, concerning the time in which Moby Dick was written, the United States was divided based on race and slavery. The North and the South were at odds with what to do about runaway slaves, and whether the new states occupied through Westward Expansion were to be turned into free or slave states. Newbedford, Massachusetts, where Ishmael and Queequeg first met, was a free state, but with the consequences of the Fugitive Slave Act circulating at that time, tensions between white and black individuals were at an all-time high. With historical context, we can see where Ishmael’s fear stems from – from the unknown identity of his roommate, and later, the realization that Queequeg was an uncivilized, black cannibal.
From this lack of understanding of who and what Queequeg actually was stemmed a guttural sense of curiosity within Ishmael. The simple nature of observing Queequeg and his actions – the way he walks, dresses, his tattoos, his Pagan idolatry towards Yojo (the small doll he carries with him and seemingly worships), and his speech – began to break down the barriers of ignorance that separated Ishmael and Queequeg into various categories. Queequeg states in Chapter thirteen, “It’s a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians” (pp. 68). The much-needed development of the United States, to Melville, should be built on a mutual understanding of one another, not the categorization and segregation of white from the “other”. To Queequeg, we all all human, and despite the initial introduction between him and Ishmael, the curiosity shown between the two of them has developed into a mutual understanding and respect for each other. Melville uses this development in their relationship to critique to ignorance of the United States, founded on the lack of understanding of what makes white superior to other races, and condemning our nation to a future of further ignorance as it grows into the idea of fear of the unknown. We fear what we lack knowledge of, whether it be the depths of the ocean or the idea that we are all the same, regardless of our race.
What makes the quote above so intriguing within the book is that prior, Queequeg is overwhelmed with a “profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to make his people happier” (62), only to learn that the glorious nation of the United States and its Christian citizens were in fact so backwards in their ways of thinking and understanding one another that they should instead learn from the cannibals. Ironic to think about: Christians learning from the ways of cannibals, a group demonized and referred to as uncivilized and dangerous, not only for their race, but for their culture. The lack of knowledge of Queequeg and his people instilled a fear towards them, one that makes Ishmael and his relationship so out of the ordinary to most. Their relationship is a direct reflection of what Melville hopes the United States to become: an accepting, knowledgeable nation built on the mutual respect and understanding of different peoples, not one that is separated based on race, and the idea that white is superior to all else.
The latter idea alone can be torn from its pedestal under the singular quote that Queequeg believes white Christians should learn from the group they despise to return to a place of unity over division. Moby Dick, while encompassing numerous allegories and references to the foundation of our society and nation, focuses on how the lack of knowledge and understanding of oneself and others can form a rift from which we develop as a nation into an ignorant and fearful people.