Queequeg and his Coffin: (maybe a spoiler)

As we have discussed in class Queequeg's coffin is an ironic work of symbolism and detail. Queequeg has this coffin made at a time where he thought that he would die due to some sort of fever or flu that was going around. Upon this coffin he had pictures which he values as important to his life carved on it. That itself is an interesting idea, normally coffins are blank and give no clues to who rests within. However, Queequeq's coffin is different. After he survives the fever that is being spread he uses his coffin as a sort of trunk, or holding device for all of his positions that he values. This in and of itself is very interesting and deep to me personally.

I come from a very religious background and the idea of holding your entire life inside something that symbolizes the very death that he just avoided is very interesting to me. Personally, I would think about how finite life is every single time I open that coffin up to get a shirt or whatever I needed. Im not going to go as far to say that its creepy, but it is an extremely interesting idea. I personally think that in modern times people are far more sensitive to death because people live longer and there are more medical cures, so when a person dies, its normally after all other options of life extension have been worn out. So, perhaps it wasnt as odd as an idea for him rather then me.

Even more symbolic and intriguing to me is when the ship crashes at the end of the book and everyone is drowning, the coffin is the only thing that keeps Ishmael alive. The idea that something that represents Queequeg's death can save his best friend on the ship is really powerful. Queequeq himself ends up dying in the accident, but his foresight into his own mortality ends up saving the life of one person on that boat.

It honestly is a haunting scene for me to read and picture because the idea of grasping onto something to survive that was used my someone very close to me as their home in death gives me chills. Im not sure if others got the same response when they were reading the book, but if I had to choose a moment in the book that I most related to or connected with, it would be this.