Jordan, Rieke (2021):
"Ishmael’s Night of Rest and Relaxation."New American Studies Journal 71 : 5 .
"Ishmael’s Night of Rest and Relaxation."
Journal Article
Link for Citation: http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?fidaac-11858/3253
DOI: 10.18422/71-05
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Abstract
My article on Moby-Dick explores the juxtaposition of self and other, alienation and community, friendship and leisure. By way of the book’s famous fourth chapter, “The Counterpane,” I argue that repose, conceived as a way of spending time, exposes some of the contradictions of the capitalist dictum of industriousness. The quilt that features so prominently in the chapter is to be underestood as a figure of resting and relaxing, which accumulates a patchwork of additional meanings through Ishmael’s contradictory experiences during the night at the Spouter-Inn with Queequeg.