Queequeg's Symbols In Moby Dick

Some of the most persistent patterns in the Old Testament are the ranges from blessing to punishment and from life to death. These patterns are very reminiscent of the appeal that Melville’s Moby Dick has over its readers. Symbols of life and death follow us throughout both books in many variations: flooding of the sea, pillars of salt, drowning, murders of brethren, plagues from God and so on (Leiter 1958). However, the symbol I am most interested in is the reoccurring image of the coffin. Imbedded within the story of Ishmael, Queequeg, Melville and Moby Dick, are many versions of coffins. The literal versions are within the story itself—Peter Coffin, the innkeeper who unites Ishmael with Queequeg, and Queequeg’s Coffin, built on the premonition
I argue that Queequeg, who speaks but does not write (even his own name), literally embodies writing through his tattoos before it was stuck in the linearity of print and novels. His tattoos violate the linearity and legibility of the text as he himself is a “queer round figure”(Caramello 1983). Illegibility is a central concern as we see characters trying to decipher illegible images in the past chapters as well. Stubb, earlier on, watches Queequeg examine the doubloon and says, “Here comes Queequeg—all tattooed—looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself.” Then Queequeg compares the markings on his body to those on the coin after which Stubb interprets the zodiac decorating the doubloon as a message from the heavens. Ishmael later transfers this analysis on to Queequeg’s tattoos as well as to the markings on the whale. Mirror-like, the reflections flash from Queequeg to Ishmael to the coffin to the ship to the doubloon to the whale and back to the coffin. The legibility of all these characters and items are solidified when Queequeg copies his own tattoos onto the coffin and makes it an immortal replica of his own body as well as a copy of the text that he represents. Later on, Ahab says, “Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver!” (575). This immortal text can be read as a message from the heavens, the legacy of Queequeg, or the tale of the ship’s