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Error8 t1_j0w1e6z wrote

I was making a bit of a joke, but it's in chapter 10.

"If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan's breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country's phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage those old rules would not apply."

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Trick-Two497 t1_j0w2l93 wrote

Yeah, the author explains in this passage exactly what is means, and it doesn't mean marriage as a New Englander would mean marriage.

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Error8 t1_j0w43l5 wrote

Hence the joke.

I only meant to take a lighthearted jab at our modern American conservative school boards threatening to remove all literature that even hints at homoeroticism. I understand Melville was making something of a joke of it himself, but the scene is undeniably homoerotic, and those are Queequeg's words.

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BruceChameleon t1_j0xfl94 wrote

Melville had a penchant for it. His letters to Hawthorne read very romantically now.

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Error8 t1_j0xr6pm wrote

We really lost a lot of male emotional connectivity in the last century. It's tragic how many men have grown lonely and then bitter in our atomized society.

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Trick-Two497 t1_j0w67n1 wrote

I'm just explaining why I didn't remember there being a gay marriage in the book.

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