Character Analysis Of 'Queequeg In His Coffin'

In Chapter 110, “Queequeg in his Coffin,” Queequeg is stricken with a horrible fever that led him to accepted his death and ordered a coffin be made. After everything was prepared for his passing, he was suddenly healthy once again because “he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not yet die yet, he averred” (Melville 480). This proves how powerful the psyche is that one can will themselves back to health or even self-induce madness as seen in the character of Ahab where he chooses to lose his person to the mad rage provoked by Moby Dick. If the mind is so able, is it possible to change fate by using it? This scene of Queequeg demonstrates how the dying harpooner was able to change his fate by willing himself psychologically not to. If this statement is assumed true and fate can be manipulated by the choices one makes, is fate true? If fate is true, does free-will exist since regardless of the action the final outcome is bound …show more content…
This is the way life works, one cannot escape from this cycle of “metempsychosis” as Ishmael cries out. This “rebirth” the protagonist speaks of is once again brought forth when he recalls the temple of his royal friend Tranquo’s created out of a whale carcass. As he walks within it he notices how the whale’s bones are being “woven with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but himself a skeleton” (450). This once again establishes a cycle where “Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories” (450). It also exemplifies how nature in this life cycle reclaims what is theirs and goes back to its peaceful

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Character Analysis Of 'Queequeg In His Coffin'

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