Queequeeq as an American Imperial Subject in Melville’s Moby Dick.

Abstract

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick has been scrutinized for the imperialistic constructs within its multicultural, multiracial and multiethnic settings. This article focuses on how Ishmael, the main character of the novel, describes the character of Queequeeg, the ethnic harpooner, at the scenes in the novel before they go aboard the ship Pequod, during their early meetings in New Bedford. In these events, Ishmael interpellates Queequeeg into existence, as through Ishmael’s narration here that Queequeeg is firstly depicted. The main character Ishmael serves as an organ of American Imperialism within the multicultural setting of the novel. The character Ishmael’s Eurocentric gaze constructs the non-white characters Queequeeg the ‘cannibal’ as a disempowered colonial subject, mainly through colonialistic and religious themes, powered by capitalistic motives. Queequeeg’s ethnicity is viewed by Ishmael through an Imperialistic, Eurocentric ideology that serves to frame non-white character, Queequeeg, into an inferior subject status. Queequeeg’s cultural identity in the end is constructed, judged, and modified by cultural criteria imposed by Ishmael’s Eurocentric gaze, which is colored by a capitalistic backdrop.