Moby Dick

Herman Melville's Moby Dick; or, The Whale (1851) describes Captain Ahab of the whaling ship Pequod and his quest to kill the white whale that took his leg on an earlier whale hunt. This self-destructive mission ends with the death of Ahab and his crew, with the single exception of Ishmael, the book's narrator. The novel dramatizes the concerns of American middle-class men in the emerging capitalist marketplace of the mid–nineteenth century. The novel negotiates meanings of bourgeois manhood and same-sex relations, as well as man's precarious relationship to nature.

The characters of the novel and their relations with one another represent two models of Victorian manhood: (1) the traditional ideal of “artisanal” manhood, defined through small-producer values, economic autonomy, and self-sufficiency; and (2) an emerging ideal of “entrepreneurial” manhood, defined by competitive individualism, the exploitation of natural resources, and control over other men in the workplace. Artisanal manhood is represented by Ishmael, who goes to sea to escape from urban alienation, and Queequeg, a South Sea islander and harpooner. The two men are joined in a sentimental, homoerotic relationship that enables them to resist Ahab and the entrepreneurial manliness he represents. Ahab's first mate, Starbuck, shares Ishmael and Queequeg's commitment to artisanal manhood, but his attraction to entrepreneurial manhood and desire for economic gain make it impossible for him to resist the madness of the captain's quest.

While Ahab represents the destructive potential of mid-nineteenth-century entrepreneurial capitalism, the white whale represents nature. The purpose of the Pequod is to hunt sperm whales for their oil, or “sperm.” By means of the whale hunt, capitalist enterprise symbolically converts the masculine erotic energy of nature—represented by the sperm—into cash. Ahab's quest for revenge, however, leads the crew beyond its capitalist purpose of exploiting nature for pecuniary gain and on a path toward the destruction of ship and crew.

In Moby Dick, the homoerotic bond between Ishmael and Queequeg serves as the foundation for a radical social critique of capitalist economics and commodity fetishism. The socially and sexually transgressive relation between the two men, who share a bed and undergo a “marriage” ceremony, has liberating potential. Initially drawn to Ahab, Ishmael separates himself from the murderous crusade through his bond with Queequeg. Ishmael and Queequeg's relationship challenges the violently coercive entrepreneurial masculinity and phallic power represented by Captain Ahab, and the noncompetitive union of the two men becomes the foundation for a re-examination of men's relation to one another, and to nature. In the end, only Ishmael survives at sea by using Queequeg's coffin as a flotation device. Queequeg's symbolic reaching out to Ishmael from his own death is suggestive of the maternal love and devotion that Victorian middle-class Americans considered necessary to men's spiritual salvation.

Moby Dick can thus be read as a homoerotic, sentimental critique of bourgeois entrepreneurial manhood, which sustains and perpetuates itself through the exploitation of natural resources and the domination of other men in the workplace. The novel contains a plea for an ideal of artisanal manhood and the need to resist the forces of entrepreneurial capitalism. While the novel suggests that men could prevail over forces of economic change, it also conveys Melville's pessimism about the impact of capitalism on American masculinity.

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