Queequeg
Better to have scaled the side of the ship to gain passage as a stowaway to sail the seven seas than remain on shore waiting to be a king
Chapters 23 - 27: Last Sentences
Chapter 23. Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of the ocean-perishing - straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! Chapter 24. And, as for me, if by any possibility, there by any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death , my executors, or more properly, my creditors, find any precious MSS in my desk, then here I prespectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. Chapter 25. Think of that, ye loyal Britons! We whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff! Chapter 26. Thy selected champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, oh God! Chapter 27. On the grim Pequod’s...
I love everything about Queequeg.
ReplyDeleteI find him fascinating. I was, saddened, ironically, to learn that on our first introduction to him that he was out very late, missed his ‘supper’ (I thought we midwesterners only used that term) and was unsuccessful in selling his ‘head.’ I also find it interesting that the narrator, Ishmael, felt free to literally try on Queequeg’s ‘door-mat’ in the man’s absence. Quite a boundary violation, right? Especially since it is Ishmael’s room!
ReplyDeleteI felt that it was a bit of a trespass, but it shows how Ishmael is open to experience, trying things on for size. He tries on Queequeg's religion on for size a bit later, going through the motions of praying to his little carved idol.
ReplyDeleteGreat point, there is a bit of foreshawdowing to all of it (and I need to keep pushing ahead on the book as I haven’t reached the point where he prays to the little carved idol). As a first time reader of the book, it’s making me curious as to what acutally motivates Ishmael [yes, he states at the beginning, he is restless and impatient with things]. He has this admixture of curiosity, great attention to detail, adventure seeking, but also seems like an old person set in their ways at times. It makes for a good character. He so fears sharing a bed with a savage, for example (and most westerners probably would) and then puts on the savage’s clothes in his absence. He also states, “You cannot hide the soul.” So at this point we are by now well aware that he is beyond Queequeg’s appearance and on to a higher sort of dignity the purported ‘savage’ possesses. It’s a good experience for me as a reader, kind of generous I think on Melville’s part. I’m not exactly sure why I feel that way, but the writing so far seems, to repeat, ‘generous.’
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