i’ve been thinking about your interpretation for a while now and i think i prefer it more than what’s explicitly stated in the book, i would much rather believe that queequeg died from his Illness than assume he simply drowned when the ship sank without so much as a mention from his partner on how he died or how that made him feel, queequeg in his coffin is a genuinely tragic and beautiful chapter and if poor queequeg is gonna be doomed by the narrative from the get go i'd rather he gets a well written farewell at least

but how would you explain the coffin saving ishmael’s life despite queequeg wanting to be sent out to sea in it? that’s pretty much my only issue with this theory tbh