Moby "Dick"?

by Nate Barker

The other day in an English class of mine we were discussing Moby Dick, focusing in on a certain passage concerning the homoerotic overtones of a relationship between two characters (Ishmael and Queequeg for those of you familiar with Melville's work). As he is wont to do, the professor turned to me suddenly and asked me for my impressions of the short passage, saying something along the lines of "Do you think this passage is supposed to be sexual?".

I thought to myself, well, it definitely seems to be that way, Freud would certainly see the phallus imagery. But then a thought popped into my head. Why does there seem to be this trend in the academy of assuming a Freudian reading of certain texts? Yes, in my case there is a "piece of wood" and a reference to "do unto your neighbor as you would have him do to you," resulting in an obvious sexual reading. But this need not be the case. We carry on as though reaching a Freudian conclusion is in fact the ultimate conclusion in an analytical process; that is to say, once a text has been read through Freud's framework, we promptly tie off any further discussion and move on. No literary theory, not even that of the most brilliant academic ever to walk this earth, should be institutionalized to such a degree.

We should certainly weigh every possible theory and thesis when attempting to understand a text, but never should we move from theory to theory, systematically sucking all creativity out of the process. Perhaps all of this is the result of my liberal arts education. Maybe at other academic institutions students are encouraged to weigh all possibilities in literature courses, and original ideas are not marginalized by professors who cannot see past the restrictions of their discipline. Regardless, all I am saying is once I'd like to see even the clearest phallic reference in a text be read as something–anything–else.