Disillusionment with Christian Whaler Practices
Despite securing passage, Queequeg never saw the Captain’s cabin, being placed among the common sailors. Like Peter the Great toiling in foreign shipyards, Queequeg endured this seeming ignominy because he hoped to learn Christian arts that might benefit his people—making them happier and better. However, the practices of whalemen soon convinced him that Christians could be both miserable and wicked, “infinitely more so, than all his father’s heathens.” Upon arriving at Sag Harbor and witnessing how sailors spent their wages, and then seeing the same behavior in Nantucket, poor Queequeg “gave it up for lost.” He concluded that “it’s a wicked world in all meridians” and resolved to “die a pagan.” Yet despite this disillusionment, he continues living among Christians, wearing their clothes and attempting to speak their language.
Future Plans and Pact with the Narrator
When asked about returning home for a coronation—considering his father very old and feeble—Queequeg answered not yet, expressing fear that Christianity had unfitted him for ruling over thirty pagan kings before him. He planned to return eventually, once he felt “baptized again.” For the present, he intended to “sow his wild oats in all four oceans.” Upon learning the narrator planned to sail from Nantucket on a whaling voyage, Queequeg resolved to accompany him, ship aboard the same vessel, share the same watch, boat, mess, and every hap. The narrator joyously agreed, not only from affection but also because Queequeg’s experience as a harpooneer would prove invaluable to one ignorant of whaling mysteries. Their conversation ended with Queequeg embracing the narrator, pressing his forehead against his, and both falling asleep together.
CHAPITRE 13. Wheelbarrow.
Ishmael and Queequeg begin their journey to the whaling ship by settling their inn bill, borrowing a wheelbarrow for their belongings, and sailing aboard the Nantucket packet schooner Moss. During the voyage, a dangerous boom accident threatens the ship, and Queequeg heroically rescues a passenger who had previously mocked him. Ishmael’s loyalty to Queequeg deepens profoundly following this display of courage and selflessness.
Settling Bills and Local Reaction to Ishmael and Queequeg’s Friendship
On Monday morning following the strange events of the previous night, Ishmael settles both his own and Queequeg’s inn bill, though he uses Queequeg’s money to do so. The landlord and fellow boarders appear highly entertained by the sudden friendship that has developed between them, especially given that Peter Coffin’s outlandish stories about Queequeg had previously alarmed Ishmael about the very person he now keeps company with. The local townspeople stare at them as they pass through the streets—not particularly at Queequeg, since the residents are accustomed to seeing cannibals in their midst, but rather at seeing such intimate companionship between a white man and a savage.
Journey to the Schooner Moss and Queequeg’s Explanation of His Personal Harpoon
The two companions borrow a wheelbarrow and load it with their belongings, including Ishmael’s carpet-bag and Queequeg’s canvas sack and hammock, making their way down to the Moss, a little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the wharf. As they wheel the barrow along, Queequeg occasionally stops to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. When Ishmael questions why he carries such a cumbersome item ashore, pointing out that whaling ships typically provide their own harpoons, Queequeg explains that he has a particular affection for his own weapon because it is made of assured stuff, well tried in many mortal combats, and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. Like inland reapers who prefer their own scythes though not obligated to furnish them, Queequeg keeps his harpoon for private reasons.
Queequeg’s Sag Harbor Wheelbarrow and Rokovoko Wedding Punchbowl Anecdotes
Queequeg shares two humorous stories as they travel. The first describes his first encounter with a wheelbarrow in Sag Harbor, where the owners of his ship lent him one to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house. Despite knowing nothing about how to operate it, Queequeg placed his chest on the barrow, lashed it fast, and then simply shouldered the entire thing to march up the wharf. He then tells a second story about a proper ship captain who visited Rokovoko Island and was invited to his sister’s wedding feast. When the High Priest performed the ceremonial first dip into the wedding punchbowl before the blessed beverage could circulate, the punctilious captain—thinking himself superior to a mere island king in the king’s own house—coolly washed his hands in what he mistook for a finger bowl. The islanders found this misinterpretation highly amusing.
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