Plot Summary
Chapter 11, "Nightgown," is a brief, intimate scene set in the predawn hours at the Spouter-Inn. Ishmael and Queequeg lie together in bed, chatting and napping at intervals. Queequeg affectionately drapes his tattooed legs over Ishmael's before drawing them back, illustrating how quickly the two have become comfortable with each other. Eventually, their restlessness overcomes them, and though daybreak is still far off, they sit up in bed with the blankets tucked tightly around them, their knees drawn up to their chins against the bitter cold of the unheated room.
Ishmael keeps his eyes shut to preserve the snugness of bed, but when he finally opens them, the raw darkness of midnight unsettles him. Queequeg suggests lighting a lamp and smoking his tomahawk pipe, and Ishmael—who had objected to the smoking just the night before—now happily agrees. They share the pipe in companionable silence beneath a canopy of blue smoke, until Queequeg begins to speak of his native island. Ishmael eagerly listens, noting that he will reconstruct the story more fully in subsequent chapters once he has learned to understand Queequeg's "broken phraseology."
Character Development
This chapter marks a turning point in Ishmael's relationship with Queequeg. Only the night before, Ishmael was alarmed by the harpooner's appearance and habits; now he finds deep comfort in Queequeg's presence. Ishmael's admission that "love" has bent his "stiff prejudices" is a frank acknowledgment that genuine friendship has replaced his earlier fear and cultural bias. Queequeg, for his part, is depicted as radiating "serene household joy"—a phrase that casts him not as a frightening stranger but as a source of domestic warmth and emotional security.
Ishmael also reveals a contemplative, philosophical side. His musings on comfort, contrast, and identity show a narrator who is perpetually turning inward, seeking meaning in even the most mundane experiences.
Themes and Motifs
Comfort through contrast: Ishmael argues that warmth can only be truly appreciated when some small part of the body remains cold. This principle—"Nothing exists in itself"—extends beyond temperature to become a broader philosophical claim about the nature of experience and knowledge in the novel.
Darkness and identity: Ishmael's preference for keeping his eyes closed leads to a meditation on darkness as "the proper element of our essences," while light belongs to our "clayey part." This reversal of conventional light-dark symbolism anticipates the novel's sustained exploration of whiteness, blackness, and the limits of perception.
Cross-cultural friendship: The easy domesticity of the scene—two men sharing a bed, a blanket, and a pipe—quietly dismantles racial and cultural boundaries. Their intimacy is presented as natural and mutually enriching.
Literary Devices
Simile: Ishmael compares himself and Queequeg to "the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal," a vivid image that encapsulates the chapter's theme of warmth amid cold and connection amid isolation.
Digression and philosophical aside: Melville interrupts the narrative to let Ishmael philosophize about comfort, warmth, and identity—a technique that will become one of the novel's defining structural features.
Foreshadowing: Queequeg's decision to speak of his "native island" sets up the biographical chapter that follows, while Ishmael's note about reconstructing the story "in the mere skeleton I give" signals the narrator's editorial role throughout the book.
Imagery: The "blue hanging tester of smoke" illuminated by lamplight creates a dreamy, almost sacred atmosphere around the two friends, elevating an ordinary moment into something ceremonial.