Masculinity in the Works of Herman Melville - 2445 Words

Herman Melville’s novels, with good reason, can be called masculine. Moby-Dick may, also with good reason, be called a man’s book and that Melville’s seafaring episode suggests a patriarchal, anti-feminine approach that adheres to the nineteenth century separation of genders. Value for masculinity in the nineteenth century America may have come from certain expected roles males were expected to fit in; I argue that its value comes from examining it not alone, but in relation to and in concomitance with femininity. As Richard H. Brodhead put it, Moby-Dick is â€Å"so outrageously masculine that we scarcely allow ourselves to do justice to the full scope of masculinism† (Brodhead 9). I concur with Brodhead in that remark, and that Melville’s†¦show more content†¦Rather than conforming to aged, socially constructed masculine roles, Melville is challenging them by concealing feminine characteristics in his most manly concepts; he is trying to t ake â€Å"a man born in once independent Man, and,† in this novel, â€Å"now [unman] Man† (M-D 391). â€Å"[S]mall erections may be finished by their first architects,† Ishmael reflects to himself about the Cathedral of Cologne, but â€Å"grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from completing anything† (M-D 125). Melville uses ancient architecture and constructions as phallic metaphors to imply that they must remain incomplete if they are to remembered as â€Å"grand† and â€Å"true†. A chapter in which gender sentiments are comically muddled is the chapter known as â€Å"The Tail†, where Melville takes part in disassembling, at the same time celebrating, this obviously phallic symbol and uses careful and also obvious language to stress its feminine, as well as masculine, qualities. In the tail the â€Å"confluent measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point† (M-D 294), Melville describes what superficially sound as only be phallic and masculine qualities. However, Melville does not allow the â€Å"tail† to be easily written off as overtly masculine. The tail’s â€Å"amazing strength† does not â€Å"cripple the graceful flexion of its motions†; rather itShow MoreRelatedA Man s World On Wall Street1638 Words   |  7 PagesTo Be a Man What makes a man, a man? Herman Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener,† written in 1851, undoubtedly constructs a man’s world on Wall Street. During this time, it would be said that men and women had a certain role to fulfill. It just so happened that men were considered superior over women during the 1800’s. However, Melville wasn’t completely prosperous exterminating women from his narrative. Herman Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener,† is full of male characters. Bartleby, Turkey, NippersRead MoreAnalysis Of Herman Melville s Typee1850 Words   |  8 Pagesbasically the rest of our lives, and with some shape or form, shape us to who we are today. These relations, similarly have to do with faces, actions and personal experiences that we have never been exposed to before. This type of exposure is apparent in Herman Melville’s Typee,where â€Å"identity† is of critical importance to that of Tommo, the narrator, along with the tribe that he encounters while stranded on the island. There are numerous instance as to where Tommo questions his moral and somewhat physicalRead More Moby Dick Essay4651 Words   |  19 Pagesand power of the emotions and the intellect. The novel praises and critiques the American society in sharp and unequivocal terms, while, at the same time, mirroring this mixed society through the â€Å"multinational crew of...the Pequod† (Shaw 61). Melville, through his elaborate construction of the novel, â€Å"makes the American landscape a place for epic conquest† (Lyons 462). The primary draw of this novel is the story itself: a whaling ship, headed by a monomaniac, and the pursuit of a whale, or theRead MoreCivil War Was A Tragic War For America2001 Words   |  9 Pagesjoin the naval service in World War I and later becoming a journalist. While working as a reporter for somewhat of 6 years (1920-26) some his employers included: Boston American, the Cl eveland News, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He then began to work for the Newspaper Enterprise Service and for the U.S. War Production Board (1926-41). He became a staff member of the American Heritage and became a senior editor (1954-1959). The Civil War was the topic of all Catton’s most famous and awarded booksRead MoreWhiteness as a Field of Study2712 Words   |  11 Pages a process view as a gain by the immigrants fleeing from oppression or poverty. And the price to pay for those gains was their culture. Another antecedent was by late 1970s and early 1980s; feminists’ scholars in their study of patriarchy and masculinities perceived the cultural hegemony of whiteness, as an ideology connected to the male dominance in western societies. All those antecedents in the 1960s-1980s prepared the ground for the whiteness studies of the 1990s. Whiteness studies focus on