Zoe Olow  

ECL 522-01  

Prof. Pressman  

19 October 2025

Short Essay #1

Closing out reading chapter 6, one will come across the last paragraph, which stands out reguarding the town where Ishmael’s story begins. Ishmael currently resides in New  Bedford, Massachusetts, as well as many other whalemen and their counterparts who inhabit that native land. As Melville is describing the streets of the town and more as Ishmael and Queequeg walked through New Bedford, he addresses the people who reside there, even the local women.  This happens to be one of the few times women are mentioned within this large book, as  Melville wrote a male-dominated story. One might find this very interesting how women are not prevalent within this story, but they do have an impact on the men of the town of New Bedford and how they live their separate lives. Readers will see how the women can draw their sailor men back into their quaint small town, even after traveling such long distances around the world doing their jobs.  

“And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in their  seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell  me, the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles offshore, as  though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.” (Melville  Chapter 6, page 38)  

One can picture what Melville was making us imagine with these metaphors and similes and actual places reguarding where the story of Ishmael takes place, New Bedford, and what the people of that land must crave more of in their lives. Melville first describes the women of New  Bedford as red roses, which can be a symbol of beauty and light. “The women of New Bedford,  they bloom like their own red roses,” which can be seen as the women are continuously beautiful,  which can draw in a companion. He references their looks again as he continues to describe them as flowers, carnations, that symbolize how their beauty will stay forever. As women were described as flowers, then the men can be seen as pollinators, as they can continue their lineage with these women of New Bedford. The use of bright and elegant flowers to depict these women can imply that their beauty is bright and vibrant, which draws the men to them.  

As most of the men in this town were part of the whaling industry, their wives would stay back home to take care of their land and even their children for an extensive period of time. The  New Bedford women would want their men to come back from sea, as they were alone for years on end, as the men were aboard large ships traveling through the world’s many oceans. These women and their families for the sailors might have been the only sweet thing to come home to in their dull and dreary hometown in Massachusetts. He describes the women as being sweet like the spices that could be found on the islands that are called Moluccas, “The Spice Islands”, and that was their main motivation to sail back to their native land. The women here were the driving force for their sailor husbands to come back to them.  

Women here can be seen as important because if it weren’t for them, the men would have most likely gone off in search of some other land, which could have been more populated or even have better opportunities for them there. The sailors were gone for years on end, and one could think they might even want to port somewhere and stay in a different country instead of staying on the sailing vessel longer to return home to even receive the sum of money they would get for their hunting travels. The women for these men, in terms of a ship, were that anchor for their men to return to them, to tie them back in to their small town. They grounded them to come home, and they would want to return to them, especially if they had a family back home.  

The people there must have craved a new and more interesting land, as they keep going back to what they are used to in their hometown. The Islands of Moluccas were used to describe their women back home, who were known for colonization, as the land was fruitful for many spices and the variety of animals, and more, which were plentiful there. Many countries fought for control over the land once they realized how abundant a lot of spices and other exports were,  which they could make a living off of. The women who stayed back in their musky, most likely not the most pleasant town, drew their sailor men back to them after their long expedition. Again, the women were important as they drove the men back towards them, as they were the pleasant and beautiful thing to look forward to returning back in their hometown.  

Through this text, one can see how important women can be as they are that drawing light and the sweet flower that reels the men back into their old town where they reside. These women are few in number in the tale which Melville has told, but crucial to drawing their men back to land, as they can increase the population of New Bedford. These women are the driving force for the men to return to the land of Nantucket, as well as continuing the legacy of whaling that is crucial for this small city.