Ful text. Cock-A-Doodle-Doo! is one of Melville's experiments in utilizing sexually explicit metaphors, in an effort to challenge what Melville saw as a culture of sexual repression and the subjugation of women in contemporary America. Most scholars agree that this story satirizes Transcendentalist philosophy, in particular Henry David Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.