haj7’s Blog

In chapter 10, it really seems that Queequeg and Ishmael are best friends on pg. 53 at the bottom of the page “He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against me,  clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should . In a country man, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage those old rules would not apply.” Pretty much this paragraph is saying how much of a friend Ishmael is to Queequeg and that in our western society, such a new friendship would seem very suspicious but, Queequeg doesn’t know these kind of cultural rules.

I also thought it was interesting how Queequeg’s origin was in chapter 12 and how it explains that he’s really here to learn more about “Christendom” when all he had to learn about it was “a specimen whaler or two.”

The quote “A Coffin my Inn-keeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel; and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too!” really shows that the theme of death is following Ishmael and this upcoming voyage is going to be full of it.