Examen corrigé Université de Montréal Thèse numérique Papyrus ...

238of what Knapp calls the “evolutionary perfectibility” (12). He does not see America’s problemsas a step in the Hegelian dialectical triadism. Much like Althusser, Melville posits that productionof knowledge develops by breaks with and critiques of previous ideological thoughts. In thislogic, Moby Dick is a critique of race in America and American imperialism. At this point, itbehooves us to mention that Melville’s other narratives such as Typee and Clarel are but anotherharsh critique of European colonialism and an evaluation of the American ideals.To further investigate the issue of colonialism as a form of a missed encounter betweenthe colonizer and the colonized, I find it particularly useful to refer to Homi K. Bhabha’s TheLocation of Culture in which he argues that when the colonized avoids the colonizer’s gaze, hediscards “the narcissistic demand that [he] should be addressed directly, that the Other shouldauthorize the self, recognize its priority, fulfill its outlines” (98). Bhabha’s passage is indeed anexemplification of the exchange of gazes in Melville’s narrative. In Moby-Dick, for example,Ishmael deconstructs the binarist discourse that considers all non-white people as savages and theWesterners as civilized: “what is called savagery. Your true whale hunter is as much a savage asan Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owing to allegiance but to the king of the cannibals; and readyat any moment to rebel against him” (267). In the second chapter of this dissertation, I lingered onthe relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg. I want to briefly allude to that relationship andshow how Ishmael and Queequeg become intimate friends, and engaged in a marriage-likerelationship: “I found Queequeg’s arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionatemanner. You had almost thought I had been his wife….For though I tried to move hisarmunlock his bridegroom claspyet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly as thoughnaught but death should part us twain” (43-5). Many critics link the effeminization to the whole