Ishmael VS Queequeg
...en our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married.”(56) Sharing a social smoke with someone is also a way of communicating. The social smoke was the knot that tied the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg. The fact that Queequeg and Ishmael strive to become friends with each other is evidence of a joint stock company. From that moment on, they were married and true bosom friends. One’s origin determines how one lives. All of the civilized characters in the novel look upon Queequeg as a pagan cannibal. Ironically, however, where Queequeg was born and raised, he is royalty. Melville suggests, again, the idea that “nothing exists in itself”(58) by using civilization as an example. Queequeg appears barbaric in civilization. Civilization only exists by comparison to that which is uncivilized. If man had not set societal standards, everyone would be civilized. Ishmael’s civilized culture looks down upon cannibalism and paganism. When Queequeg tells Ishmael the story of the first wheelbarrow he had seen, Ishmael asks him: “Why, Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would think. Didn’t the people laugh?” (61) Although Ishmael was familiar with the wheelbarrow, Queequeg had never seen one, nor knew what to do with one. Queequeg’s story that he tells Ishmael about the punch bowl further proves that nothing exists in itself by using knowledge as an example. How to use a wheelbarrow is common knowledge in Ishmael’s land, but not in Queequeg’s land. The captain of the merchant ship did not have the knowledge that the islanders had, and so he stuck his hands in the punch bowl like a “huge-finger glass”(62). The landsmen laughed at Queequeg the same way that the islanders laughed at the captain. Ishmael once asked Queequeg if he were going to return to his native land and claim the throne. Queequeg replied: “No, not yet. I [he] am fearful that Christianity, or rather Christians has unfitted me [him] for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thrirty pagan kings before me [him]”. (60) Ishmael was born and raised in a land where Christianity was “purity”, but Queequeg was born in a land where Christianity is “defilement”. Religion is important in Moby Dick. Where Queequeg is from, his idol worship is common practice while Ishmael’s Presbyterian religion is common practice where he is from. In Ishmael’s society, Queequeg’s religion – idol worship – is considered pagan and highly unusual. Ishmael describes part of Queequeg’s idol worship: “all these strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the most unusual manner.”(35) To Ishmael, the worship looks odd and unusual, but to Queequeg, it is a serious, ceremonial and common form of worship. Instead of denouncing this type of worship, Ishmael questions his own religion: “But what is worship? – to do the will of God – that is worship. And what is the will of God? – to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me – that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world.”(57) Ishmael defines worship as a dictionary would: ...