HT26 Race/Slavery Essay Plan

Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’

Thesis statement (3 bullet points)

• Victorian literature as using the concept of racial divide and national conquering to demonstrate the universality of humanity and emotion

• Complementary implementation of overt minorities, like Queequeg, and implicitly racially ambiguous characters, like Ishmael in Moby Dick, to demonstrate the abolitionist stance of literature in the period

• Novel being published in the shadow of the Fugitive Slave Act might suggest that it was written in this way as a response, without garnering too much negative backlash for its stance on racial issues

(PARA1) Intention behind Queequeg’s character

• encapsulates the essence of the racial prejudices of the period

• his individuality and resistance to it mobilizes his character as a metonym for wider universal truths

• Melville may have intended that Queequeg be a testament to the unattainability of a singular truth, while disputing the posited symbolism of ‘whiteness’ throughout the entire novel

• the motif of his tattoos being extended to the imagery he carves on his coffin as clear symbolism for his being in tune with the universe in a way that the other characters had not yet mastered

(PARA1) quote describing Queequeg as ‘other’

‘Queequeg [...] a creature in the transition state – neither caterpillar nor butterfly’

(PARA1) analysis for ‘Queequeg [...] a creature in the transition state – neither caterpillar nor butterfly’

• Queequeg seems to be not-quite-human to Ishmael, mindset which separates the culture and origin of the two characters

• contextually set in 1841 → eugenics and slavery were rife, particularly with the colonisation Westwards and the segregation of the West Indies from major cities in the US = pushing the narrative of American natives being ‘barbaric’ as the West Indies became a place of segregation and imprisonment from societal progression

• Queequeg in a state of metamorphoses perhaps draws a positive comparison between himself and the struggle of Christ from a low societal position to an enlightened one (the butterfly)

(PARA1) Quote about Queequeg - romanticising other cultures as ‘exotic’

• the notion of Queequeg being ‘civilised’ and it being surprising that ‘these savages have an innate sense of delicacy’

• lends itself to the exoticism and romanticisation of other cultures leading to the subsequent removal of their struggle with racism and disadvantage as a community

(PARA1) Quote from C. L R. James (2025) in Mariners, renegades, and castaways supporting Queequeg as ‘other’

‘Queequeg in his own person was a wondrous riddle to unfold’ as the prophet who tattooed him had written ‘a complete theory of the heavens and the earth and a treatise of the art of attaining truth’

‘… in Queequeg therefore was embodied the mystery of the universe and the attainment of truth’

(PARA2) quotes for point about Ishmael being racially ambiguous

• Ishmael stops at a black church, stumbles into “The Trap”, where the preacher, ‘a black Angel of Doom’ is speaking to ‘a hundred black faces’

• Ishmael refers to the interactions between Christians as ‘hollow courtesies’

(PARA2) point about Ishmael being racially ambiguous

• The likening of dark-skinned peoples to demons and devils undercuts the seemingly progressive morals of the book, perhaps indicating a level of tentativeness to discuss race so overtly

• Perhaps it could also speak to the racial ambiguity of Ishmael, where the church-goers don’t seem fazed at Ishmael’s being in the church, and so the representation of minorities in the novel is a reflection of Ishmael’s feelings towards ‘blackness’, so to speak

• The preacher invokes feelings of internalised racism, which frames the novel in a world where racism is seemingly prevalent and is being overcome in the world of whaling

(PARA2) quote about demonization of blackness paradoxically existing adjacent to negative symbolism of whiteness (regarding Ishmael and Queequeg)

Ishmael resigns that it is ‘better [to] sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian’

(PARA2) analysis of it being ‘better [to] sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian’

• Incites questioning of Christian values and morals and casting a Godly light on the demonised version of aboriginal people.

• Is it that Queequeg is referred to as a cannibal and ‘barbaric’ only in the literal sense, or is it bolstered by Ishmael’s sheltered worldview of aboriginal people’s culture as alien and cannibalistic?

(PARA2) James’ argument about the unity of the non-white crewmembers more broadly

‘there is tension, the tension of strenuous labour, but there is skill and grace and beauty ... it is all a unity. You cannot distinguish between man and Nature and sweat and beauty, between sweat and beauty’ 

The crew members as having a bond above that of what is required of them in their work

(PARA3) quotes from the novel pertaining to universality of humanity

‘Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother’

The remoteness of the sea allows for an environment to discuss racial prejudices without background noise - ‘the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin’

(PARA3) analysis of ‘Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother’

• The novel’s discussion of race and nation sets it apart from the traditional formula of a Romantic novel, which is to lean into the sublime, exploring idiosyncrasy of experience, emotion, and human psychology

• It becomes a perennial commentary on the impact of positivity in humanity, covertly inserting race perhaps in an attempt to destigmatise minority groups as the ‘other’ 

• Transcends the relative one-dimensional nature of the Romantic to become more progressive and enter into a ‘metamorphoses’ just like Queequeg

(PARA3) quote about the crew’s fear of Ahab

‘Their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate’

(PARA3) analysis of ‘Their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate’ in light of disparity between christian and pagan values

• Ahab seems as though he has the power to affect Fate, whereas Fate as a notion is fixed and reliable.

• The unreliability of Ahab makes him seem godlike and omniscient. Where Romanticism in literature usually glorifies Nature as a force, Melville writes the character of Ahab to surpass

• Contrast the crew’s view of Ahab as godlike with the confusion met with Queequeg’s pagan gods, his black totem, and the way in which he decides to live and die in the light of such gods