Moby Dick: the Winding Road
Homosexuality portrayed in the novel, Moby-Dick, was used many times over the 135 chapters. Ishmael's encounters with Queequeg, and their subsequent "marriage" challenges the controversial lines of male identity in the mid-nineteenth-century. Controversial lines were in fact crossed many times in this book, and Moby-Dick critics express deep concern in the way Melville uses Queequeg as a vessel to explore homosexuality and push it along with underlying tones throughout the novel. "Melville's exploitation of denotation and connotation is extremely vital in a book of such length and with so many views. Queequeg's dilemma throughout the novel with the sailors is whether or not he is in fact a cannibal, or really a savage by heart"(Davis). He is a lover of flesh, which can technically make him a cannibal. The way Melville expresses cannibalism is "as a lover of all flesh", male of female. Thusly, the dominant reading of American literature by people all over the world was being conveyed and thought of in a way that was indescribable and very inappropriate for the times that the novel was written in.
In conclusion, Ishmael's encounters with Queequeg and their subsequent "marriage" do in fact challenge the controversial lines of male identity in the mid-nineteenth-century. Controversial lines were crossed many times in this novel, and Moby-Dick critics express deep concern in the way Melville uses Queequeg as a vessel throughout the 135 chapters, and uses him to explore homosexuality and push it along with underlying tones throughout the novel. Melville's recognition of sexual identity is very broad, as shown in a previous book he wrote for his beloved friend and mentor, Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book is about the Salem Witch-trials, in which Melville's writings set a perfect example of the power people have to exterminate a certain people, determining Queequeg's struggle with identity and to come out and tell his peers. "Homosexuality is shown most predominately in the novel when Ishmael is expected to sleep in the same bed as Queequeg, thusly producing many fears for a man with set morals, having his mind and heart turn against him in some way he is uncertain of"(Gilmore). This fear was produced from the cultural system of the nineteenth
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Approximate Word count = 779
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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