Response 2: Comstock & Queequeg: Fluctuating Significance/Value/Identity

Comstock > Cornstock > [Miss] Cornstalk

 

[Mr.] Queequeg > Quohog > Hedgehog

This second L632 response addresses the following question I included in the Gene Stratton-Porter handout:  When Elnora's family name "Comstock" morphs into "Cornstock" and thereafter "Cornstalk" (Limberlost 10-11, 49), this name change sequence suggests that "Comstock" is yet a mutable signifier for her unfixed and fluctuating socioeconomic status at this early point in the novel.  How does this name change phenomenon compare with the mutability of “Queequeg” in Moby Dick?

As I observed in my first L632 presentation, Queequeg’s name undergoes several mutations, indicating thus that he is the "savage" embodiment of the unpredictable forces of nature.  Thus the significance of his name "Queequeg" fluctuates constantly, which, in turn, invites [elusive linguistic] control and appropriation.  In other words, naming is an overcompensatory attempt to exert control over nature, as Melville's complex taxonomies parody throughout Moby Dick.  After the clamshell-laden iron-fisted Mrs. Hussey addresses Queequeg in a comically civil manner, (“Mr. Queequeg,” Moby Dick 162) the genteel name becomes a distorted caricature of "Queequeg" (i.e. as “Quohog”) before finally morphing into “Hedgehog” through Captain Peleg's crudely irreverent enunciation (185-86).

While Elnora attempts to achieve discursive authority in the mathematics classroom by regaining ownership of her name through eventual rectification ("'My name is Comstock,' she said distinctly," 11), Queequeg is seemingly oblivious to his own name distortions.  Instead, he secures higher wages through his valorous acts (i.e. than Ishmael, the novice harpooner), thus becoming invested with greater economic value (as Brooke Opel observed).  By contrast, Elnora's value is directly embodied by her alter ego Edith Carr--specifically in the latter's spectacular guise as the rare and valuable "Imperialis Regalis," or the Yellow Empress moth (356). 

It can be observed that both "Comstock" and "Queequeg" have functioned in Limberlost and Moby Dick respectively as mutable signifiers comparable to circulating currency, or to fluctuating currency values.  In fact, the metamorphosis of "Comstock" suggests both fluctuating stock value and metonymic significance (i.e. as "Cornstock," Elnora experiences herself as laughing-stock).  At the same time, the metamorphoses of "Comstock" and "Queequeg" signify the hybrid human/vegetable/animal identity fusion that remained a major discussion topic in L632.  Specifically, "Comstock" acquires a vegetable element ("Corn-") through the mathematics professor's misreading, while Peleg infuses "Queequeg" with an animal element ("-hog") before the name morphs into a full animal name ("Hedgehog").  "Comstock" undergoes a similar final mutation:  as "Miss Cornstalk," Elnora has been [mis-]enunciated as a full vegetable organism.

Although Elnora resists the professor's mis-enunciation, her vegetable affiliation is strengthened throughout the narrative as she gradually evolves into an idealized mystical seer of nature.  Thus it is implied that while men approach nature as scientific objects of investigation (e.g. Philip Ammon), women, by contrast, are pre-invested with an instinctual affinity with nature that is readily romanticized (i.e. Elnora).  Thus while Elnora embodies the ideal fusion of nature and culture, learning and affect throughout Limberlost, Queequeg caricatures the savage of the South Pacific seas and the untamable forces of nature throughout Moby Dick.  In either case both characters embody the forces of nature that invite control and appropriation, as their respective name changes signify.  At the same time, their strategies for resistance to that control and appropriation are variously determined by gender, race, class, and situation in life.