, but one of five stout men, who were alive only yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only that one I bury; the rest were buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb’ “ (Melville, 504 - 505). This irony, clearly present in all the Pequod’s gams, reflects mankind. The multiculturalism of all the different ships proved that we as humans, are all connected by the idea that sometimes we will have to rely on people we would never expect, while those we thought could survive anything are the first to be lost.“ . . . Melville’s novel becomes a conglomeration of thoughts on evil verses good, the role of fate, the tension between Christianity and paganism, in addition to a multitude of other subjects” (Chiu, 1). The crew of the Pequod is by far the most obvious counterpane in Moby Dick. Each crew member was different in his own way and brought some diverse culture and background to the ship. The three non - white harpooners, the three mates, who were white, but each held their own different beliefs about life, and the other members of the crew, such as Fedallah, Pip, Ahab, and Ishamael, all made up one big patchwork quilt of cultures. “Swimming against the racist tide of most popular fiction, Melville invested the Pequod’s three nonwhite harpooners with the dignity of priests, kings, and princes, and relegated the three white mates, Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to the status of cowards, knaves, and fools, substituting a hierarchy of merit for the hierarchy of privilege that puts whites in command of people of color” ( Robertson - Lorant, 281). It is interesting to see once again, how the white people on the ship, who most likely never dreamed of putting their lives in the hands of colored people, were so completely dependent on the colored members of the crew. Without the harpooners, the Pequod would have perished long before they even spotted Moby Dick. I think the prime example of this ...
