Among the many themes and ideas expressed by author Herman Melville in Moby Dick, one of the least examined is the superiority of man primitive on modern man. Implicit throughout the book, one can see in Moby Dick the same admiration for the "noble savage" that is so present in Melville's early stories about the simple and idyllic lives of cannibals, even if the emphasis has been shifted about the dangers of seeing things from only one point of view and the struggle between good and evil. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Before moving on to a discussion of how Melville glorifies “primitive man” in Moby Dick, a working definition of the term must be agreed upon. In her illuminating essay, “The Concept of the Primitive,” Ashley Montagu points out the error of using the term “primitive” in a scientific context, as it is very ambiguous and carries many different connotations. It shows that so-called “primitive” peoples are not as underdeveloped, uncivilized or simple as this term indicates. However, I will use the term here subjectively, with all its implications, because when Melville idolized primitive man, he did not have a specific scientific definition in mind. He had an ideal, the ideal of man before the corrupting influences of civilization took their toll. On one level of thought, Queequeg offers an excellent example of the superiority of a truly “primitive” man. This “native of Kokovo” is the romanticized image of the people Melville met during his stays in the tropical islands, whose innocence and virtue so impressed him. He demonstrates his altruism and his strength when he dives and saves from the icy water the young "potard" who had made fun of him a few minutes before and when he frees the unfortunate Tashtego, caught in the "ton of Heidelburgh. Furthermore, Queequeg ironically seems to be more civil than the supposedly "civilized" Ishmael: "I pay this particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with such civility and consideration, while I was guilty of 'great rudeness? Regardless of these qualities, which can also be attributed to many white men, he is always "content with his own company" and "equal to himself." This is an outward manifestation of the essential purity and innocence of him and his race, which is further emphasized by the fact that he is rendered unfit by the Christians he has encountered to ride on " the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan kings before him.” The parallel with his experiences with missionaries converting cannibals in the Pacific Islands is obvious: he believed that missionaries were ruining the natural joy, exuberance, and innocence of indigenous people. The ultimate testimony to Queequeg's goodness is the effect he has on Ishmael. "I felt a melting within me. My broken heart and my distraught hand no longer turned against the world of wolves." Many have said that a central theme of Moby Dick is that it is impossible to attach a single meaning to anything, and that trying to do so, as Ahab does, is very dangerous. If one subscribes to this view, Queequeg is responsible for the fact that Ishmael is the only one of the entire crew to be saved, because, after the first encounter with him, Ishmael comes to see the world differently. Clark Davis states: “Under the influence of the more naturalistic “savage,” Ishmael learns to understand what he sees from more than one angle. Of course, he also literally saves him, because it is his coffin that Ishmael ultimately uses as a lifeline. Queequeg, because of its primitiveness, is good in almost every sense of the word..