The early American novel often served an instructive almanac to readers, one which delineated the appropriate ways to act according to gender, class, and race. These novels vary in the directness of their instruction; while seduction novels such as Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple include forthright directions to the feminine readership on the consequences of sexuality, other novels, such as Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, are instructive on the expectations and performance of gender in varying levels of opacity. Both Fern and Melville attempt to subvert gender norms surrounding occupation and finance, yet uphold norms of maternal and paternal roles in the family. While Ruth Hall is a more explicitly feminist novel in its characterization of a successful, independent woman, the complexity which Moby Dick brings to the topics of gender and societal norms ultimately makes it the more subversive text.

In both Ruth Hall and Moby Dick, gender and occupation are tightly linked. Both novels reject societal expectations of gendered roles in the workforce, while simultaneously confirming them through the highly gendered occupations of their characters. Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall works as a writer– a job typically “allowed” of women during a time when “authorship was established as a woman’s profession”(Lopez Liquete 120). Because writing was rarely a lucrative occupation, it was seen as an appropriate woman’s past-time, one which could occupy a woman while her husband went out to support the family in a more “practical” field of work. Yet, unlike the woman of the period who took up writing as a hobby rather than a means of income, Ruth has little interest in writing for the sake of writing. She begins to write solely as a way to support herself and her children after her husband’s death. In this way, Fern defies the conventional wisdom of her time, that the man should work for money while the woman may work for pleasure or diversion.

Similarly, Moby Dick’s Ahab works in a masculine field, as a sailor on a whaling ship. In fact, the crew of The Pequod is entirely male. Yet Ishmael is essentially unconcerned with whaling as a lucrative endeavor. As a low-ranked sailor, he expects to make little money from his years on The Pequod. Instead, he sees the expedition as a remedy to his melancholia. For Ishmael, whaling is much more than a means of income. The Pequod’s captain, Ahab, takes this perspective to the extreme. Unlike the ship’s owners, whose primary concern is the profit of the expedition, Ahab’s only desire is vengeance against Moby Dick, the white whale. The mining of valuable spermaceti, which is the expedition’s ostensible goal, is of little importance to Ahab. Ishmael and Ahab thus demonstrate what would be considered at the time a highly feminine view of labor. Both work for personal satisfaction that is not tied to monetary gain. 

Both Fern and Melville also examine the roles of the mother and the father in their novels, as well as the intersections of gender, parenthood, and occupation. In Ruth Hall, motherhood is characterized by an intense, almost spiritual connection between mother and child. The child, particularly the pre-adolescent child, is a token of perfection; much like the preserved ringlet of Daisy’s golden hair which Ruth saves, the “sweet, earnest eyes” and “little fragile hand”(Fern 53) of the child are pristinely and endlessly preserved in the memory. Of motherhood, Fern writes, “Ruth is a mother! Joy to thee, Ruth! Another outlet for thy womanly heart; a mirror, in which thy smiles and tears shall be reflected back; a fair page, on which thou, God-commissioned, mayst write what thou wilt; a heart that will throb back to thine, love for love”(Fern 19). The tie between mother and child is “womanly,” suggesting that it is intrinsic to femininity. It is also “God-commissioned,” implying that it is natural and universal. The child is represented as an infinitely devoted model of the mother in miniature, who “reflect[s] back” her “smiles and tears,” and whose “heart will throb back to” the mother’s indefinitely. This kind of connection, Fern suggests, is singular to the mother and child. As the villainous Mrs. Hall professes to her husband, “fathers can’t be expected to have as much natural affection, to be as self-sacrificing as mothers”(Fern 27). Interestingly, Melville suggests something similar in Moby Dick when he writes about the sperm whale’s familial structure. In “Schools and Schoolmasters,” Melville writes of the male sperm whales, “as for the sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must take care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help”(Melville 392).

Further emphasizing the spiritual bond between mother and child, Fern depicts the loss of a child as an irreparable wound to the mother. In a passage following the death of Ruth’s daughter Daisy, Fern writes:

“The first-born! Oh, other tiny feet may trip lightly at the hearth-stone; other rosy faces may greet us round the board; with tender love we soothe their childish pains and share their childish sports; but “Benjamin is not,” is written in the secret chamber of many a bereaved mother’s heart, where never more the echo of a childish voice may ring out such liquid music as death hath hushed”(Fern 53).

This sentiment is echoed in the chapter of Moby Dick, “The Pequod Meets The Rachel,” in which The Pequod crosses paths with The Rachel, a whaling ship whose captain is in search of his son, who is lost at sea. Ahab rejects the captain’s pleas for help finding his son, instead choosing to prioritize his search for Moby Dick. As The Rachel sails away, Melville writes, “by her still halting course and winding, woful way, you plainly saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not”(Melville 533).

This description of The Rachel “weeping for her children, because they were not” very closely resembles the passage from Ruth Hall, in which “Benjamin is not” is written in the heart of the grieving mother. Both passages allude to the bond between mother and child which is depicted as unmatched in nature. Significantly, while this chapter of Moby Dick depicts a father in search of his son, it is the feminized ship, not the father, who is “weeping for her children.” Ahab’s decision to forgo helping The Rachel’s captain is also telling of Melville’s views on the gendered roles of domestic responsibility. In Melville and the Male Identity, Charles Haberstroh writes, “for Melville, who was reaching at this time the explosive peak of his creative powers, and who was always at the mercy of some limiting financial or familial pressure, the white whale was an expression of his will to self-centered wholeness, to swimming on, no matter how punctured by what might be lethal darts to others”(93). In other words, Melville saw the domestic life and the responsibilities that accompanied it as a burden which might limit his creative capabilities and occupational success. Fitting, then, that Ahab chooses to pursue Moby Dick instead of helping The Rachel’s captain find his son, emphasizing Melville’s ideal: a world in which a man can prioritize career and personal gain over domestic responsibility. 

Melville’s issues with fatherhood likely extended past the strain it put on his writing. In Melville and Male Identity, Haberstroh writes of Melville, “when he married in 1847, and so chose to take upon himself the roles of husband and provider, it is clear that this assumption of responsibility was only a source of anxiety for him”(Haberstroh 21). Melville perhaps felt inadequate in his ability to take on the role of breadwinner in the household; thus he “conspicuously praised the bachelor life and denigrated marriage”(Haberstroh 22). It was this insecurity and repugnance for patriarchal responsibility, Haberstroh proposes, that fueled Melville’s “often hostile attitudes towards women”(Haberstroh 22). Melville’s personal views on fatherhood and the strain of familial responsibility on the independent man align with the view, expressed in both Ruth Hall and Moby Dick, that women are natural caregivers, and spiritually connected to their children in a way that men simply can not access. Under this assumption, it seems only natural that the father should feel oppressed by his responsibilities to his family, as Melville did. Lacking the nourishing parental instinct that the mother supposedly possesses, how can he be expected to fully embrace the role of father and provider?  

Melville’s views on masculinity and the family are further reflected in Moby Dick’s chapters, “The Grand Armada,” and “Schools and Schoolmasters,” which include one of the few representations of femininity, albeit nonhuman femininity, in the novel. In these chapters, Ishmael describes a pod of whales which surrounds The Pequod, including female sperm whales who are nursing young. He goes on to discuss the dynamics of male and female schools of whales. In “The Grand Armada,” Ishmael describes how the calves gaze up at the crew-members of The Pequod as they nurse, as if, “while…drawing mortal nourishment, [they are] still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence”(Melville 388). This quote emphasizes the connection between mother and child which Melville sees as impregnable and pristine. This connection is physically represented by the “long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to its dam”(Melville 388). The umbilical cord is the embodiment of the unbreakable bond between mother and child. It provides nourishment, yet, like the whaling line which throws many sailors overboard to their deaths, it carries its own dangers. Ishmael explains that “this natural line” often “becomes entangled with the hempen one”(Melville 388) during the chase, trapping and wounding the calf. 

This idea, that the strength of the mother-child bond can be both alimental and detrimental, is echoed in Ruth Hall, in which Ruth’s connection to her daughters, Katy and Nettie, at times threatens their own wellbeing. For much of the novel, Ruth is unable to adequately provide for her daughters, who “vainly plead” for “more supper”(Fern 159). Yet she resists the attempts of her disapproving in-laws to take over care of the girls. Katy and Nettie, too young to have control over their own lives and bonded to their mother, are powerless over their situation, just like the nursing whales who are tied, for better or for worse, to their own mothers. Yet while they are underfed and cold under Ruth’s care, the spiritual nourishment that Ruth provides overrides mortal nourishment. When Mr. and Mrs. Hall manage to remove Katy from Ruth’s care by trickery, Katy finds them cold and unloving, and mourns the spiritual nourishment provided by her mother, despite the poverty that accompanied it. 

Both Melville and Fern emphasize the responsibility of mother towards child. In Ruth Hall, the children’s father is doting and involved until his untimely death, in contrast to Melville’s conception of the father’s role. Yet the family ultimately thrives without him, suggesting that the father figure is essentially extraneous. The absence of the father is not catastrophic, so long as the mother remains. Many of The Pequod’s crew, including Starbuck, are likely absent fathers themselves, who have chosen the sea over the domestic life. While Starbuck has chosen to reject, at least temporarily, an active role as father, he maintains his status as breadwinner and head of family. In one of several references to his wife Mary and unnamed son, Starbuck says, “Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father’s sail!”(545).  

This line, in which the “first glimpse of [the] father’s sail” is glorified as a beacon of hope and heroism for the son, reflects Melville’s views on both fatherhood and career in relation to masculinity. Charles Haberstroh writes, “[Melville] was…acutely sensitive to the pressures from both sides of his ancestry for male aggressiveness and worldly success”(Haberstroh 17). Melville came from a long line of men who in “their careers had attempted to join commercial aspiration to a romantic internationalism”(Haberstroh 19). What occupation could combine “commercial aspiration” and “romantic internationalism” better than whaling? The whaling voyage offered both monetary gain and personal growth and discovery, as Melville emphasizes through frequent descriptions of the effects of the sea, “that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God”(Melville 159). Melville writes these values into Starbuck’s role as a father and husband. Not only does Starbuck plan to provide financially for his family, he loftily desires that his son is “carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father’s sail”(Melvill 545). This desire reflects the romantic aspect of whaling, which Melville felt was necessary to a man’s career.  

Unlike Melville’s male heroes, who balance financial responsibility towards the family with their own, often “romantic” or sentimental pursuits, the mother must think only of her responsibility. In Ruth Hall, Ruth is the explored, the object of desire, rather than the explorer. Interestingly, both Ruth Hall and Moby Dick contain a chapter dedicated to phrenology. In Moby Dick, Ishmael analyzes the sperm whale’s skull in the chapter, “The Nut,” declaring the “high hump” of the whale its “organ of firmness or indomitableness”(Melville 350). Similarly, the doctor who phrenologically examines Ruth “diagnoses” her as having “more than the ordinary fortitude” and “tenacity of purpose”(Fern 216). 

The chapter of Ruth Hall in which Ruth’s skull is examined is much longer than the average chapter in the novel; its length sets it apart from the rest of the book and marks it as important to the reader. While the doctor tells Ruth that she has a strong “power of will,” the entire concept of the chapter denies Ruth agency. Like the sperm whale, Ruth becomes an object to be studied. The doctor’s desire to study Ruth’s skull also carries a sexist implication: that Ruth’s skull must be somehow exceptional, because she is both a woman and intelligent and successful. Similarly, the sperm whale who is attributed the capacity for intelligence, vengefulness, and love is an object of fascination not because these are such unusual qualities, but because it is a whale, a species which is not typically considered intelligent in the way of humans. Thus, women and whales are similarly studied, their intellect made into a puzzling, almost miraculous phenomenon.

Many critics of Moby Dick and Melville’s other novels cite Melville’s stereotypical portrayals of women: one critic, Martin Leonard Pops, identified “three female groups in Melville’s writings: passive victims, good mothers, and parodies of stepmothers”(Lopez Liquete 116). When limiting one’s analysis of gender in Moby Dick to the women who are present throughout the novel, this criticism seems to hold true. Only two women are physically present at any point during the hefty novel: Mrs. Hussey, the wife of the Try Pots Inn’s proprietor, and Aunt Charity, Captain Bildad’s sister. Both women fulfill the role of the motherly provider, while remaining cold and aloof. Mrs. Hussey is standoffish yet motherly through her offerance of nourishing chowder. Similarly, Aunt Charity is “a lean old lady,” not very warm or friendly, yet “ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and consolation to all on board [the] ship”(Melville 96). On the other hand, Starbuck’s wife Mary, while not physically present at any point in the novel, fills the role of passive victim; she waits helplessly on shore for her husband to return from sea. These female archetypes are certainly not limited to Melville’s writing, or to the male canon in general. In Ruth Hall, the archetypes of the good mother (Ruth)  and the evil stepmother (Mrs. Hall, although she is an inlaw and not a stepmother) are certainly represented. 

While Fern does not portray women as passive victims– even Ruth’s children, who are relatively helpless due to age, are shown making attempts to better their situation through various means–Ruth’s agency is slightly tempered by the character of John Walter, Ruth’s publisher and righteous benefactor. Mr. Walter treats Ruth with respect and offers her the salary that her writing merits when no one else will. While Mr. Walter is certainly a better model for the treatment of women than other male characters such as Mr. Hall and Mr. Lescom, his portrayal as Ruth’s savior devalues the novel’s message about the hard work and perseverance of women. Ultimately, however, Fern’s choice to include Mr. Walter as a character makes Ruth Hall more realistic: Fern emphasizes that hard work and strong morals can only get a woman so far in a society that obstructs their success at every turn.  Melville and Fern here diverge most markedly in their depiction of women: while Melville’s women live passive lives ashore, Fern’s Ruth Hall fights for her place in a world that seems constantly against her. 

The complete absence of women on The Pequod or any of the ships which it encounters on its voyage is significant considering Melville’s preoccupation with the distinction between life on land and life at sea. In the chapter, “The Lee Shore,” Ishmael describes the departure of The Pequod from the shore, saying, “with all her might [The Pequod] crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights ‘gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward…to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore”(Melville 107). Although the “lashed sea” is full of “peril,” asserts that he would rather “perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee,” because “in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God”(Melville 107). The land and the shore are highly gendered; the land is feminine to the sea’s masculine. The feminized whaling ship rejects the shore and infiltrates the masculine territory of the sea. Like Ruth, who in trying to make her way as an independent single woman meets with constant opposition from the masculine world, The Pequod “fights ‘gainst the…winds that fain blow her homeward”(Melville 107) to her proper feminine station. Melville thus suggests that women should fight to improve their livelihoods and defy gender norms, despite the rebukes that they will inevitably face.

While Melville clearly genders the difference between land and shore, the sea also represents the upheaval of norms, including gender norms. Ishmael craves male companionship and brotherhood, and characterizes the relationships between men on shore as too inhibited. He laments that “some poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man…make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest they pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for their presumption”(Melville 204). The sea banishes these “social acerbities”(Melville 416). In “A Squeeze Of The Hand,” Ishmael reflects on the “abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling” he had while mistakenly squeezing the hands of his associates, saying, “Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness”(Melville 416). Landlessness allows Ishmael to reject masculine standards and reconcile the more “feminine” parts of himself, which are affectionate and gentle, with his masculinity. Even Mark Antony, Ishmael claims, was more feminine when “ripening his apricot thigh…along his green-turfed, flowery Nile”, yet “ashore, all this effeminacy [was] dashed”(Melville 249).

Ultimately, Melville’s depiction of gender and femininity in Moby Dick is much more complex than the limited number of women in the book might suggest. The novel in many ways stands for the subversion of gender roles and discriminatory views in general. This is best depicted through the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg: Ishmael grows quickly to respect and even participate in Queequeg’s pagan rituals. Their relationship, which Ishmael compares to that of a husband and wife, subverts ideas of what masculine friendship should be. Like the sea, Queequeg represents a great equalizer. Queequeg’s culture engages in cannibalism, a practice that is the epitome of deviance from western standards. Melville also describes “the universal cannibalism of the sea”(Melville 274), which like Queequeg topples notions of what it means to be human, male, white, etc. In contrast, Ruth Hall, which on its surface is a much more feminist text, defies the idea that a woman must rely on a man to survive, while lacking the complexity of gender representations that Moby Dick, a book with so few actual women, possesses.

Works Cited

Fern, Fanny. RUTH HALL: A DOMESTIC TALE OF THE PRESENT TIME. BY FANNY FERN. Penguin Books, 1997.

Haberstroh, Charles J. Melville and Male Identity. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1980.

Liquete, María Felisa López. “THE PRESENCE-ABSENCE OF WOMEN IN THE WORK OF HERMAN MELVILLE.” Atlantis , vol. 17, no. 1/2, Nov. 1995, pp. 115–126.,

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick or The Whale. Northwestern University Press, 2001.