A Comparison of Two Critical Analyses of Moby Dick

Per. 2

Nicholas Lee

Mr. Brown

English 4AP

28 February 2012

Lover Boy

A novel little-noticed in its time of 1851, Moby Dick has since grown in repute and significance as near the titular whale. In the beginning chapters of the book, critics are quick enough to note the relationship between the protagonist Ishmael and his fellow harpooner Queequeg. Critics Charles Harberstroh and Rictor Norton both lend their different interpretations to the bond between the two; whereas Harberstroh imagines the two as a one-sided psychological bond, Ishmael relying on Queequeg as an anchor for emotional support, Norton interprets the relationship as homoerotic. However both do agree on one thing; Ishmael relies on Queequeg for the love and stability his inner psyche lacks, whether sexual or purely platonic in nature.

Harberstroh first disseminates the relationship by examining the reason behind Ishmael and Queequeg's blossoming friendship; Queequeg, being a tribal savage, concerns himself “with all manner of grotesque figures and drawing,” and does not concern himself with interpreting the world around him, content in his simple living, harmonious with his flesh and blood (Melville 883). On the other hand, Ishmael “with splintered heart and maddened hand” constantly questions himself and his environment, with growing inner turmoil (Melville 111). Thus Harberstroh claims that Queequeg comes to be the bedrock of stability which Ishmael can rely on, as Queequeg's calm begets yet more calm in the narrator of Ishmael.

Norton, though, believes that the machinations behind the relationship of Ishmael and Queequeg were akin to that of a marriage and its subsequent sexual consummation; Ishmael being the wife, first appears nervous sleeping in the new bed of his roommate, or husband. Rictor Norton equates this to a metaphor for the consummation of marriage; “there is some 'kicking about' - which echoes the landlord's earlier promise about the erotic suitability of the bed - and...