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Deirdre Byrne
Dr. Rosenthal
EN 570: Studies in the American Renaissance
14 December 2015
The Pequods Lone Survivor: How Ishmael Navigates Blackness to Save His Life
For a novel published in 1851, there is an unusual omission of slavery in Herman
Melvilles Moby-Dick. While the Pequods crew is depicted as culturally diverse and chiefly
accepting of differences, the crewmembers do not overtly yield to one race as more supreme than
others. Despite this communal portrayal of race, Ishmael compares all individuals to slaves. In
the first chapter, this narrator asks, Who aint [sic] a slave? (Melville 21). The novel begins
with the dilemma that individuals are indebted to some sort of larger than life, complex idea.
Toni Morrison suggests that the novel confronts this notion of classifying individuals identities,
and regarding white as the supreme race: she coins this theory as a white racial ideology.
Morrison, therefore, considers the White Whaleor Moby Dickan allegory for Melvilles
radical frustration with a white racial ideology in America, since it renders physically different
individuals as powerless, insignificantthereforea social other. She maintains that Ahabs
preoccupation with destroying Moby Dick reflects Melvilles own suspicion with whiteness as
ideology (Morrison, On Herman Melville 214).
Assuming that Morrisons allegorical reading of the White Whale is correct, it is worth
noting that the texts narrator, Ishmael, is the only crewmember that survives the allegorical
white racial ideology. As all other shipmates drown in the vortex of the sea, Ishmael
miraculously escapes the vortex as the black bubble upward burst and the coffin life-buoy
shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by [his] side (Melville 427). The novel ends

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with this image of Ishmael being indirectly saved by an individual that the white racial ideology
renders as other: Ishmaels bosom friend, Queequeg. As such, Morrison may be
misrepresenting Melvilles concerns about the white racial ideology, by framing her argument
around Ahab. Therefore, by having Ishmael remain the lone survivor from the Pequods voyage,
Melville indicates to the community at large that, while the white racial ideology cannot be
destroyed, navigating images of blackness can challenge this ideology.
Before understanding how to properly navigate images of blackness, it is important to
unpack the slippery terms, blackness and whiteness. Although Morrison suggests that
Americans idealize whiteness, the term blackness should not necessarily be viewed as whiteness
opposite. In fact, both of these terms have unstable meanings throughout Moby-Dick. From the
beginning of the novel, blackness possesses a variety of connotations, both positive and
negative. In the second chapter, Ishmael searches for an affordable place in New Bedford where
he can spend the night. During this search, he accidentally wanders into a black church. Before
realizing where he has wandered, he compares the black church to a Black Parliament sitting in
Tophet (Melville 24). On one hand, parliament suggests that this is an image of sovereignty;
perhaps this image indicates blackness may be worth idealizing. On the other hand, Tophet
indicates the hellishness of the church, which portrays blackness as unworthy of idealizing.
After his initial observations, Ishmael reveals that the preacher spoke to the church about the
blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there (Melville 24).
Despite the initial unclear depiction of blackness, this newer depiction of blackness is outright
alarming. This illustration of blackness clearly epitomizes hell; the mention of the teethgnashing only escalates feelings of personal torment that one would experience in this picture of

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hell. Ultimately, these conflicting notions of blackness bring forth polarizing images to
individuals, therefore rendering Melvilles definition of blackness as unstable.
By definition, blackness depicts chaos and instability by absorbing and reflecting the
presence of all colors. Christopher Freeburg claims that throughout Moby-Dick, unsettling
images of blackness haunt characters, bringing out their feelings of internal chaos. Freeburg
suggests, for Melville, blackness signifies the violence of subjects experience of existential
limits and the destruction of the subjects social viability (xi). As such, blackness reminds the
shipmates of their own insignificance and mortality. The presentations of blacknessas it
comes to be associated with the vast sea, storms, and etceterarender the shipmates as lacking
control of their own fate, making them aware of their own personal instability. The preachers
depiction of blackness also clearly reveals the destruction of the subjects social viability; his
depiction of blackness suggests that when one is confined by images of blackness, no light will
liberate the individual from this personal imprisonment (hence, blackness of darkness).
The presentation of whiteness, revealed throughout the novel, mirrors the same confining
aspects that blackness yields. While Morrison examines Ahabs frustration with whiteness being
idealized, Ishmael, too, remains suspicious of whiteness. Ishmael admits that, above all things,
he finds the whiteness of the whale [appalling] (Melville 159). Similar to his interpretation of
blackness, Ishmael finds himself dumbfounded by whiteness, because this concept also has
both positive and negative implications. On one hand, Ishmael regards whiteness as a color that
refiningly [sic] enhances beauty (Melville 159). On the other hand, he sees whiteness as evil:
[B]y its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heatless voids and immensities of the universe, and
thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation (Melville165). Whiteness, here, is
reminiscent of Freeburgs definition of blackness, since its vast ambiguity reminds individuals of

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their limitations. Ishmael considered idealizing whiteness as troubling because, like blackness,
the term lacks a stable meaning. Denotatively, whiteness represents both absence of color and
the concrete of all colors (Melville 165). Whiteness reveals both the emptiness and vastness of
the world, which leads the characters to recognize their own personal insignificance.
Because of the similarity between these two terms, it is unclear why whiteness is held in a
higher regard. Realistically, whiteness and blackness frighten and confuse characters equally.
While both of these terms unsettle characters, the main reason individuals regard whiteness more
highly than blackness is because Americans socially constructed blackness as the inferior
concept. Incidentally, Morrison asserts that literary texts portray blackness as the cause of
literary whiteness (Playing in the Dark, 9). Morrison indicates that whiteness becomes
constructed as ideal specifically when seen in opposition to blackness. Simply put, society only
regards whiteness as ideal, because society regards blackness as flawed. Without blackness,
the white ideology would not exist, since the terms essentially share the same meaning.
Whiteness and blackness do not only serve the purpose of unsettling characters; they
also serve the purpose of acting as racial signifiers, by physically marking individuals
differences. These signifiers, thereby, grant white individuals an illusion of personal power.
For instance, in Chapter 40, Midnight, Forecastle, one of the only black servile characters, Pip
takes orders from the following characters: French Sailor, Azores Sailor, and Chinese Sailor.
These charactersmarked with their ideal whitenessregard Pip as their subordinate,
demanding that he entertain them with his tambourine. Pips blackness, allows these sailors to
understand and practice their constructed social privilege. Surely, without Pips racially
constructed blackness, the sailors would not degrade Pip, or treat him as an inferior who merely
exists to provide them with entertainment. Without racial signifiers, all characters have as much

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control over their fate as Pip; no one individual is necessarily in more or less danger than anyone
else on the ship. Realistically, then, privilege is an illusion.
Despite this reality, Pip, too, recognizes his darknessor his constructed inferiority
through the white sailors. As a storm breaks out that evening, Pip calls out, Oh, thou big white
God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black boy down here
(Melville 151). Not only does this scene reveal that Pip recognizes his inferiority through
whiteness, but it also shows that this image of whitenessGodcan only reached by navigating
darkness. Although many shipmates called [Pip] mad (322), Ishmael write[s] that this little
black boy was brilliant (Melville 319). Perhaps Ishmael emphasizes Pips brilliancy because
Pip recognizes that whiteness cannot be understood without the acknowledgement of blackness.
Similar to Morrison, Freeburg maintains that throughout Moby-Dick, it is in fact through the
whiteness that Melville depicts blackness (38; emphasis added). This statement indicates a
possible solution for, not comprehending or destroying the white racial ideology, but instead,
challenging a white racial ideology. While it can never fully be grasped, one can come closer to
understanding whom the ideology impacts and ultimately challenge it by entering into blackness.
In this scene, however, Pip is not even trying to comprehend why whiteness is idealized,
but instead, he is trying to connect with the white depiction of God, and through darkness
God will connect back, with mercy to Pip. Karcher sees Pip as a prophetic character (88),
and asserts that he should not be read as the stereotype of the happy slave (84). Rather, Pip
serves as [an angel] of doom, warning the Pequod of her fate (Karcher 84; emphasis in
original). In this instance, Pip is interpreted as sending a signal to the Pequods crew concerning
the importance of entering into darkness and working with whiteness. By reading Pip as

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prophetic, this indicates that he has wisdom worthy of regarding as ideal. However, this
wisdom becomes overlooked because he is socially labeled as black.
The labels black and white themselves were constructed through language, with the
intention of attempting to represent blurry concepts. The white racial ideology, ultimately, takes
these terms and uses them to project a seemingly stable identity onto a unique individual.
Granted, using these vague terms to classify identity is an insufficient strategy of fairly
representing a person. When using language, not only to label an individuals identity, but also to
consequentially enforce an entire system of beliefs, Melville sees this as morally wrong and as
absurd because of the inconsistent nature of terms black and white. Thus, Morrison claims the
focus on Moby Dicks whiteness reveals how Melville was overwhelmed by the philosophical
and metaphysical inconsistencies of an extraordinary and unprecedented idea that had its fullest
manifestation in his own time in his own country, and that idea was the successful assertion of
whiteness as an ideology (212). In America, these divisive terms white and black have
developed into systems of hierarchy that use color to reinforce practices like slavery. After
attempting to unpack these terms and recognizing their changeable connotations, it seems absurd
to consider that these terms perpetuate practices of racism and prejudice.
The white racial ideology reinforces a problematic system of projecting presumed and
definitive identity labels onto individuals, on the basis of physical appearance. Freeburg argues
that Melville uses characters like Pip to represent individuals with racially embodied blackness
(25). Every time Ishmael describes Pip, he calls attention to Pips physical difference, in
comparison to other shipmates. To illustrate, Ishmael refers to Pip as the little negro (Melville
319), ebon head, and black head (Melville 321). As opposed to the unembodied notion of
blackness, embodied blackness is a more definitive and less slippery, of a phrase; the white

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characters appear only to have negative associations with this racially embodied blackness. For
instance, the first observation Ishmael makes about Queequeganother character embodying
blackness1 is his distinct, physical and bodily, difference. When Queequeg enters into
Ishmaels room, Ishmael is taken aback by Queequegs colored face: It was of a dark, purplish,
yellow color, here and there stuck over with large, blackish looking squares (Melville 33).
Embodied blackness is marked as a physical difference that, initially, white characters may see
as suspicious, and perhaps even dangerous. Individuals actually embodying blackness become
accustomed to being regarded as unworthy by the white racial ideology.
By considering the White Whale an allegory for the white racial ideology, it is worth
noting that Moby Dick has physically marked Ahab with embodied physical blackness. When the
White Whale physically dismembers Ahab, the captain realizes the dehumanizing aspects the
white racial ideology promotes. Paradoxically, this creature he intended to physically
dismember for commerce ultimately dismembers him, thereby marking Ahabs physical
difference, which renders the captain as black. As such, this degrading experience provokes
Ahabs attempt to eliminate the allegorical White Whale. This event not only causes Ahab to
forget the monetary purpose in the ships voyage, but also contributes to his loss of identity.
Morrison notes, We leave whales as commerce and confront whales as metaphor (212). Yet,
his fixation on destroying an unstable concept only perpetuates Ahabs personal enslavement,
causing him to fall victim to an ideology of whiteness.
Ahab does not see himself as a victim of enslavement; instead, he uses his trauma as a
motivation to both understand the white racial ideology and to destroy it. He sees himself as the

Carolyn Karcher points out, that Melville did not necessarily intend for Queequeg to be read as African American (64). It is therefore
important to note that the white racial ideology does not only suppress African Americans. It is Queequegs physical difference--tattoos, skin
color, etc.--that embody his physical blackness. Perhaps if we read Queequeg as embodying blackness, Melville is revealing the varying
degrees of individuals that come to be labeled as black; during this time in America, he is revealing that blackness not only impacted slaves.
1

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one able to eliminate this slippery, unsettling idea of the white racial ideology. He tells the
Pequods crew, All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event in the
living act, the undoubted deed there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the
mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through
the mask! (Melville 140). Ahab suggests that all objects have a clear meaning, but these objects
hold larger connotations projected by an idea too large to grasp (hence, some unknown but still
reasoning thing). This statement resembles how the white racial ideology came into being. Its
origin makes no clear sense, but it becomes perpetuated and understood only by seeing blackness
as negative. Ahab suggests to his crew, that these larger than life ideas are possible to strike
through. Here, he motivates the Pequods crew to consider a connotation that they find
frustrating and see the white whale as representative as this connotation which further suggests
the changing, unfixed nature of the terms whiteness and blackness (since the whale can mean
something different to each crew member).
Although I agree with Morrison, who sees Ahab as sharing the same frustrations
regarding the white racial ideology as Melville, I do not necessarily see Ahab as a character
entirely worthy of Morrisons praise. Freeburg suggests that Ahab enters the voyage to regain
mastery over his degraded self. He suggests that Ahab is focus[ed] on acquiring self-mastery
and mastery over others because he believes it will alleviate [from him] the forceful
disturbances that blackness represents (16). When Ahab meets Moby Dick on the second day of
the chase, it becomes this reencounter with the whale reminds him of the difficulty of
maintaining mastery over his self. When he is so physically close to the White Whale, he reveals
to Starbuck the struggle he has with maintaining control over himself. Ahab debates, Ahab is
for ever Ahab, man Fool! I am the Fates lieutenant; I am under orders (Melville 418).

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During his encounter with the White Whale, Ahabs inner conflict enters the novels forefront as,
here, he is seen trying to dignify himself through language. However, when seeing Moby Dick,
Ahab feels like he is only the palm of [the White Whales hand] (418). When actually
confronting the whale he is reminded of how small he is and that he cannot gain a sense of
mastery over this large metaphor. This debate with his self does reveal that part of his mission in
destroying the White Whale was to relieve himself from this feeling of lacking control.
I do not mean to argue that Ahabs fixation on the White Whale should be considered
vain. Morrison points out how some critics are limited in believing the single allegorical
meaning of the white whale is understood to be brute, indifferent Nature, and Ahab the madman
who challenges that Nature (On Herman Melville, 211). She sees this view as misdirected
since Ahab is not exclusively motivated to kill Moby Dick to gain vengeance for his lost leg
(Morrison, On Herman Melville 211). I agree that Ahabs preoccupation with the White Whale
is not simply to avenge his honor; he does recognize confining aspects of a white ideology.
Typically during this time, white individuals regarded black individuals not only as slaves, but
also with a monetary value. Morrison suggests that whiteness as privileged natural state
was formed out of fright (214). By suggesting that this white ideology was formed out of fear,
Morrison indicates that whites feared the idea of an uprising from blacks, because an uprising
could make whites powerless. Ahab, however, does not appear fearful of any sort of uprising,
nor does he appear like he is trying to oppress any individualsespecially since his culturally
diverse crew seemed specially picked (Melville 158).
The fact that this ideology of whiteness cannot fully be comprehended frustrates Ahab;
he see[s] in [Moby Dick] outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it (212).
He admits to his crew that this inscrutable thing is chiefly what [he] hate[s] (Melville 212).

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Ahab is baffled that he cannot understand an incomprehensible idea. Perhaps he believes
destroying the idea altogether will enlighten him and liberate him from his status of other. The
problem in setting out with the sole purpose of destroying the white racial ideology is that this
concept is unstable and socially constructed; therefore, it is impossible to master or destroy.
Since the terms whiteness and blackness remind characters of their own vexing
limitations, it may be safe to presume the impossibility in conquering the white racial ideology.
Admittedly, Morrison recognizes that Ahabs struggle to [comprehend this ideology] is
gigantic (On Herman Melville, 214). She notes that through nonfigurative language,
[Melville] identifies the imaginative tools needed to solve the problem (214). Yet, she
substantiates this claim using a quote from Ishmael, not Ahab: subtlety appeals to subtlety, and
without imagination no man can follow another into these halls (Melville 161). If Ishmaels
statement here does reveal Melvilles ideas about solving this inconceivable ideology, this
indicates that Ahab is not the only character onto whom Melville projects his social beliefs.
Melville also suggests Ahabs method of confronting the white racial ideology is inherently
flawed. Although the idea of the whiteness of the whale may be inscrutable, Ishmael
suggests that it is still worthy of carefully analyzing and attempting to imagine these ideas. Let
us try, he urges readers (Melville 162). Without attempting imagine these ideas, it becomes
impossible to learn about the identities of individuals and truly enter into the blackness that can
challenge the white racial ideology.
Freeburg suggests that like Ahab, Ishmael seems motivated to achieve some sort of
mastery. However, Freeburg is limited, since Ishmael enters the voyage as a true wanderer,
willing to explore, not just the sea, but also ambiguities, and therefore the notion of blackness.
Ishmael admits that his curiosity regarding the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself

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guided him to take to the sea (Melville 22). Ishmael views the White Whale as complex, but a
complex idea worth engaging. Unlike the monomaniac old [Ahab] who is fixated solely on
conquering Moby Dick, Ishmael allows his imagination to help him change his perspective
(Melville 168). Ishmael admits, Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and
could still be social with itwould they let mesince it is but well to be on friendly terms with
all the inmates of the place one lodges in (Melville 22). Here, he admits that he may find a
certain idea as alarming, but he is willing to open his mind to these ideas he find alarming. As
such, he is willing to socialize with vexing images such as blackness, and recognizes that this
socialization with unsettling ideas will bring him closer to his shipmates. Ultimately, Ishmael
does not want to be the master of any sort of idea; instead, he appears to be willing to confront
blackness as a way of building community with individuals who are different from him.
As was noted earlier, in order to challenge the white racial ideology, one must enter into
blackness. Although, blackness is a precarious term, Freeburg believes that the interracial
bonding within the novel constitutes an embodied blackness mak[ing] available [for
characters like Ahab and Ishmael] a temporary escape from the desire for knowledge and power
that exceeds the limitations of life (16). By entering into interracial bonds, characters that
embody blackness could grant Ahab his desired enlightenment, and perhaps liberate him from
overwhelming images of whiteness. As such, maintaining a bond with Pip could have allowed
Ahab to open his mind to a colorless world, free of abstract, culturally constructed images.
Notably, it is Ishmael who enters into this embodied blackness, which thereby liberates
him from his past preconceived notions regarding whiteness and blackness. Initially in the text,
Ishmael appears prejudiced towards different individuals. After learning he will share a bed with
the culturally different, Queequeg at the Spouter-Inn, Ishmael becomes apprehensive. As he

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waits for Queequeg, his thoughts reflect his current idealization of whiteness: I remembered a
story of a white man falling among the cannibals, [and] had been tattooed by them (Melville
34). This thought indicates Ishmael fears that Queequeg will somehow corrupt his (Ishmaels)
selfand therefore could intercept Ishmaels power. However, despite initially being alarmed
by Queequegs Pagan practices, Ishmael and Queequeg become bosom friends once Ishmael
embraces Queequegs unfamiliar differences (Melville 56). Ishmael realizes, Queequeg is my
fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my
particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I
must turn idolater (Melville 57). Rather than resisting a different idea, Ishmael realizes that
uniting with a different concept and embracing its abstraction can grant him a greater
understanding of his self. He, therefore, overcomes the fear, which perpetuates a white ideology,
by analyzing and then entering embodied blackness.
As an ideology of whiteness is intentionally divisive, these images of interracial bondage
may be intended to challenge the notion that one race should be seen as more supreme. By using
the characters Queequeg and Pip to grant opportunities for interracial connections, Melville hints
that these bonds are more worthy of developing than destroying the white racial ideology.
According to Carolyn Karcher, Queequeg serves as one of Melvilles composite racial figures
created to undermine racial categories and to inculcate the lessons in racial tolerance (65).
After Ishmael overcomes his fear of Queequeg, his new bosom friend helps him see that the
terms, black and white, are essentially one in the same. Ishmael, therefore, becomes more
racially tolerant, as Queequeg helps him to recognize the instability of his own assumed
whiteness. To illustrate, in Chapter 10, A Bosom Friend, Ishmael watches Queequeg and
recognizes how his friend has helped him become tolerant: I began to be sensible of strange

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feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned
against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it (Melville 56). Freeburg may
see this instance of Ishmael becoming sensible of strange feelings (Melville 56) as the narrator
starts recalibrat[ing] the blackness that he [now] acknowledges haunts him (Freeburg 45). As
unembodied blackness renders unsettling pictures, here, by creating a bond with a racially
embodied black charactersomeone who Ishmael would have previously regarded as foreign
Ishmaels previous fears and prejudices begin melting (56). As Morrison noted that blackness
causes literary whiteness, Melvilles lessons in racial tolerance allow Ishmael to realize that his
whiteness is only present in the body. Moreover, it indicates that the fear that the white racial
ideology applies to the term black is rhetorically driven by fear of difference.
Indeed, compared to the most other sailors aboard the Pequod, Queequeg does look and
act differently than these characters. As the narrator watches Queequeg carving his statue of
Yojo, he comments that most othersas in, racially embodied white characterswould be
repelled by Queequeg. Yet, Ishmael feels mysteriously drawn towards Queequeg, observing
that Queequegs very indifference [spoke] a nature in which there lurked no civilized
hypocrisies and bland deceits (56). Ishmael finds a unique wisdom in Queequeg that he does not
recognize in most other individuals. Ishmael recognizes that despite his cultural difference,
Queequeg is not frightening and, therefore, should not be rendered the narrators inferior.
As Ishmael becomes attracted to Queequegs embodied blackness, he deconstructs his
own understanding of his whiteness as he confronts black images. After the early scenes, once
the Pequod embarks on its whaling voyage, Ishmael surprisingly disappears from the novel.
While the Pequods crew becomes fixated on destroying the allegorical White Whale under
Ahabs leadership, Ishmael, remains on the outskirts of this action. Compared to the earlier

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scenes where this narrator appears to function as the novels protagonist, his location and role
aboard the Pequod often remains ambiguous. However, since the narrator was the Pequods only
survivor, it would seem only apt to assume that he was, indeed, on the voyage. Perhaps the
narrators point in characterizing himself in the earlier chapters was to reveal to readers how he-as the narrator and, therefore, writer of the texthas become enlightened by his personal
interracial bond with Queequeg; he has overcome his earlier inadvertent practice of the white
racial ideology. Karcher believes that Ishmaels enlightenment allowed him to start practicing
sophisticated cultural relativism (69). I agree with Karcher, and maintain that the later parts of
the text embody this practice, as he begins to deconstruct his formerly presumed whiteness and
write himself as a fluid character, who lacks a body and color, aboard the Pequod.
By writing himself as a fluid character, Ishmael challenges the white racial ideology
more so than Ahabby recognizing ideologies cannot be destroyed; instead, by removing color
and a body from himself, he performs a myriad of identities to show how rhetorical labels are not
truly reflective of an individuals identity. Incidentally, Morrison points out that [t]he ability of
writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the
test of their power. The languages they use and the social and historical context in which these
languages signify are indirect and direct revelations of that power and its limitations (Playing in
the Dark 15). Although it might seem like Ishmael is absent from certain textual scenes, Ishmael
actually asserts his writerly power through his bodiless fluidity, since it allows him to weave in
and out of the mindset of other characters. To illustrate, in some scenes, Ahab privately
converses with crewmembers, making it unclear how Ishmael sees conversations that exclude
him. In other scenes, Ishmael can somehow read the minds of characters. Some chapters
such as Midnight, Forecastleare even composed as a stage play, meaning the textual

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structure omits narration altogether. Yet, the various rhetorical structures developed through the
text may be indicative of the fact that all individuals have fluid identities. As such, constructed
labels like blackness and whiteness unfairly attempt to classify an individuals identity.
Rather than dwelling on his suspicion of whiteness idealized, Ishmael uses the
inscrutable notion of whiteness as a way of learning about others and recognizing that the
difference between whiteness and blackness is merely constructed. His colorless and
bodiless identity reveal his willingness to not just accept notions of blackness, but also a
commitment to loving his fellow man and acknowledging the tie that binds him to the rest of
humanity (Kocher 71). Although it may be impossible to understand why whiteness is idealized,
Ishmaels bosom friendship with Queequeg inspires the narrator to make a rhetorical effort to
evolve through opening his mind to individuals different than him. Freeburg suggests,
Ishmael and Queequegs mutual becoming is a willing act of self-sacrifice, a kind
of old selves with no guarantee of newer selves except in the reader. But what
these sacrifices promise is the certainty of a different self/world relation a
formal guarantee that is made only better here, when one considers the
underappreciated possibilities that are lost. The luxury of interracial circumstance
could become the necessity of interracial repair. (Freeburg 59)
Unlike the monomaniac Ahab who refuses to enter into unsettling darkness to help him
navigate his inward pain, the interracial communion between Ishmael and Queequeg liberates
these two characters from their own fears. Furthermore, not only does this union allow readers
to recognize the problems with reinforcing a white racial ideology, it also allows them to see
how embracing abstractions can grant personal freedom.

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Although Ahab is critical of the white racial ideology, his failure to enter into an
interracial union ultimately causes the white racial ideology to destroy him. Like Ishmael, Ahab
is granted the opportunity of challenging the inscrutable ideas about whiteness by connecting
with Pip. However, unlike Ishmael, [Ahab] is not saved by his marriage with his fellow man,
since he does not truly commit himself to it as the alternative to the phantasmic hunt through
which he carries his shipmates to their doom (Kocher 88). As Ahab gets closer to actually
encountering the White Whale, he begins to see Pip as a distraction from his own goal in
conquering the White Whale. Yet, Pip insists that he can be a useful friend for Ahab. Pip tells
Ahab, [Y]e have not a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor me for your one lost leg; only tread
upon me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain a part of ye (Melville 399). Pip offers to act as Ahabs
dismembered leg, indicating that this interracial bond would liberate Ahab from his own physical
differenceor--embodied blackness. Through Pips embodied blackness, Ahab may be able to
shift his obsession away form the white racial ideology and recognize that the only way to
challenge an ideology that falsely promotes divisive ideas is to make a lifestyle out of embracing
individuals who are different. However, rather than entering into blackness through bodily
touch (Freeburg 25), Ahab, reluctantly decides that his friendship with Pip cannot be. He tells
Pip, If thou speakests thus to me much more, Ahabs purpose keels up in him (Melville 399).
Although he appears to have respected Pip more than any other character in the novel, for Ahab,
his purpose in trying to conquer the white racial ideology in order master his own self becomes
more important to Ahab. As such, Ahabs inability to recognize that socially constructed notions
cannot be mastered paradoxically renders him as the one mastered.
Despite his frustration with the white racial ideology, Ahab is not entirely indicative of
Melvilles social beliefs. Through Ishmael, Melville suggests that although this ideology cannot

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be abolished, it can be challenged. At the end of the novel, the interracial union between Ishmael
and Queequegas represented through the life buoy coffinindicates that one can navigate
images of blackness through making connections with characters of embodied physical
blackness. As Morrison points out, Melville seems suspicious of the notion of whiteness being
idealized, claiming that without blackness, whiteness could not be regarded highly. What is
especially slippery is that throughout the text, images of blackness and whiteness both are
indicative of the same sort of unsettling images. However, American society has rendered
individuals with embodied blackness as being of less worth than individuals of embodied
whiteness. Although Ahab is critical of the white racial ideology, his fury towards it is
misdirected, since he seems more frustrated that his personal embodied blackness has left him
feeling like he lacks control. However, to regain control and challenge the white racial
ideology, characters are given a chance to enter into an interracial union. Ultimately, because
Ahab is such a monomaniac, he refuses to promote racial tolerance, and therefore, he literally
is drowned by the white racial ideology. In the end, Ishmaels conversion into a life style that
embraces what is foreign allows him to enter into blackness. Yet, this entrance, allows him to
burst through vortexs the black bubble, revealing that his willingness to empathize with
individuals can challenge the stability of seeing white as ideal.

Byrne 18

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