Editing Queequeg (section)

== Queequeg's coffin ==
Toward the end of the novel Queequeg falls ill and is presumed to die. In chapter 110, Queequeg expresses his desire to not be buried in his hammock, "according to the usual sea-custom", but rather that a canoe-like coffin be made for him when he dies.<ref name=":0" /> Sickness does not overtake Queequeg. While he recovers from his illness, he does die by other means in the end. He does not survive the Pequod's wreck as Ishmael is the only survivor. Still, he is ultimately responsible for saving Ishmael's life from beyond the grave. Ishmael survives the wreck by clinging to the coffin that had been made for Queequeg.<ref name=":0" />

Michael C. Berthold's journal article titled "Moby-Dick and American Slave Narrative" from the ''Massachusetts Review'' outline's one idea regarding the symbolic meaning of Queequeg's coffin.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Berthold |first=Michael C. |date=Spring 1994 |title=Moby-Dick and American Slave Narrative |jstor=25090518 |journal=The Massachusetts Review |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=135–148 }}</ref> When Queequeg heals and is no longer presumed to die in chapter 110, the book mentions how he spent many hours "carving the lid with all manner of grotesque figures and drawings...to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on his body."<ref name=":0" /> In his article, Berthold says that because of the tattoos carved into it, the coffin is "Queequeg's sacred text and co-extensive with his own body."<ref name=":4" /> Berthold sees this moment as in contrast to chapter 18 when [[Captain Peleg]] mislabels him as Quohog in the forms enrolling him to work on the ship. Queequeg is unable to correct Peleg's mistake because he cannot read or write. He is only able to sign the document with a mark that replicates one tattoo on his right arm.<ref name=":0" /> Dissimilarly, Berthold mentions that the coffin allows for Queequeg to "reproduce his entire body" in terms of tattoos. Berthold sees this full representation of Queequeg's tattoos on the coffin as a reclamation of "the wholeness that the official discourse of a Peleg denies him" previously in chapter 18.