Date of Award
Fall 1-2-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Jeffrey Allred
Second Advisor
Jeremy Glick
Academic Program Adviser
Mark Miller
Abstract
This paper examines homosocial relationships in Moby-Dick and Absalom, Absalom! to evaluate the ways male bonds have transformed between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and how these relationships comment on the strength and possibilities of American democracy. I argue that Melville’s novel presents a utopian vision of America defined by democratic bonds developed through labor and homoerotic intimacy that cut across racial lines and melt individual identities, while Faulkner’s novel reflects many of those imagined possibilities, only to see them wither away under the weight of racial divisions. Ishmael and the crew of the Pequod embrace this erasing of self, and do not find it to threaten their masculinity, but Faulkner’s characters find such a loss insurmountable, and with time, increasingly so.
Recommended Citation
Profeta, Nicholas, ""The Very Milk and Sperm of Kindness": Democratic Pleasures and Echoes of Intimacy in Moby-Dick and Absalom, Absalom!" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/1438
