Editing Queequeg (section)

== Relationship with Ishmael ==
Queequeg and Ishmael first meet in [[New Bedford, Massachusetts]] when Ishmael and he are placed in the same room of The Spouter-Inn. At this moment, Queequeg had just returned from a whaling voyage and Ishmael was staying the night on the way towards a voyage as well. Queequeg returns late to the inn, not knowing that Ishmael has been booked into the same room with him. Ishmael is at first afraid of this unfamiliar person who he must share a bed with, however, he keeps an open mind. He quickly comes to the conclusion that "for all his tattooings he [Queequeg] was on the whole a clean, comely-looking cannibal."<ref name=":0" />

Chapter Four begins with Queequeg's arm "thrown over" Ishmael in his sleep.<ref name=":0" /> This scene is an abrupt, striking contrast to the previous chapter in which Queequeg threatens to kill Ishmael. Ishmael states that "You had almost thought I had been his wife." Soon after, in Chapter 10, Queequeg proclaims that they are married, which in his country implies that they are "bosom friends".<ref name=":0" />

Steven B. Herrmann analyzes this relationship in his journal article "Melville's Portrait of Same-Sex Marriage in Moby-Dick." Herrmann believes that the "Ishmael-Queequeg 'marriage'...is the first portrait of same-sex marriage in American literature."<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Herrmann |first=Steven B. |date=Summer 2010 |title=Melville's Portrait of Same-Sex Marriage in Moby-Dick |jstor=10.1525/jung.2010.4.3.65 |journal=Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=65–82 |doi=10.1525/jung.2010.4.3.65 }}</ref> He sees the physical affection between the two characters as Melville moving beyond the "cultural imprints of homophobia" in literature.<ref name=":1" /> Regardless of Herrmann's beliefs, it cannot be confirmed whether Melville intended for this to be a homosexual relationship; Melville leaves this interpretation to the reader.