Essay about The Feminine Sea in Moby Dick - 3712 Words

The Feminine Sea in Moby Dick Melvilles novel, Moby Dick, has only men. Melvilles mens club sails a sea whose gender changes often and whose personality is resolutely enigmatic. The feminine in Melville ¹s novel hides her face in a veil of stars and behind a cloud of words. Literally, Moby Dick is a mens club, with only a glimpse of a woman in the background, or reflected in the stories of the sailors. They seem to have no sexuality, nor any personality. The two full blooded, dialogue speaking characters in the novel are both servants. Mrs. Hussey ladles out  ³Clam or Cod ³ to Queequeg and Ishmael, bans harpoons from her house, and busies herself like some cosmic washerwoman. In the novel, she is a laughably comic figure†¦show more content†¦Later in the novel, when Queequeg comes off the whale, the dough-boy gives him ginger-jub, as per Aunt Charitys orders. Stubb thunders and sends for more manly grog, then Aunt Charity ¹s gift...was freely given to the waves.(Monkey-Rope p. 419) So, even though we are told that she has been indefatigable in her efforts, the only gifts enumerated are trivial and silly, befitting someone who has no idea of the seriousness of the work involved. Both Charity and Mrs. Hussey are distanced from the men and m ens work of the novel; they are the servants of the club, ignorant and silly. The only other women in the men ¹s club exist in memory. Ishmael speaks of his best and most-conscientious step-mother, sending him to bed during the daylight. Like Jane Eyre, locked up only in his room, his visited by a phantom and the vision haunts him. This scary vision is repeated, but happily, Ishmael wakes to have Queequeg ¹s arm around him (The Counterpane). Both Starbuck and Ahab are married and have children, though their wives are scarcely mentioned. The Pequod rarely stops for a gam and never passes letters, so we know that Starbuck and Ahab never write home. Just before they sight the white whale, both Starbuck and Ahab stare at the sunrise, and think back to their families on Nantucket. Ahab cries in regret for the treatment of his wife, saying that in marrying her, he widowed her. Starbuck entreats him to return;Show MoreRelatedMargaret Fuller Vs. Herman Melville1259 Words   |  6 Pagesslaves†, and where men hold â€Å"the belief that Woman was made for Ma n†. Two books, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Woman in the Nineteenth Century, provide male and female perspective in the 19th century. These separate texts exemplify two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, Woman in the Nineteenth Century provides perspective of the feminine experience in a male dominated world while Moby Dick portrays a society from a male point of view and experiences woman as subservient to himself. 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