k in the vicinity of funeral pyres. It smells like the left wing of the day of judgement; it is an argument for the pit." (353) These passages directly addresses Emerson's and Whitman's concept of Evil as merely a lack of Good at a given point. Their idea of all-encompassing Goodness is encapsulated in this passage by Whitman: "And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,/The earth good and the stars good, and all their adjuncts good." (35)The idea of a binary world is apparent in the characters of Moby Dick as well. In the first chapters lines are clearly drawn between "Christians" and "savages;" these two descriptions define exclusive states of being. However, unlike the boundary between natural/supernatural, it is possible to cross the line dividing Christian from heathen. Queequeg straddles the latter just as whales traverse the former. "But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in a transition stateneither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just civilized enough to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner. . . If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on." (34)Ishmael also begins to creep across the boundary himself, both by smoking from Queequeg's tomahawk and by worshipping Yojo.White men and "savage" races are paired throughout the novel, even beyond Ishmael's bond with Queequeg. Each white Mate is partnered with a dark-skinned harpooneer. Especially striking is the situation of the six-foot-five-inch-tall, black harpooneer Daggoo and the short Third Mate Flask: "Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man beside him." (108) Another example of this occurs when the addled Pip latches onto Ahab. Not only are they black and white, but the ...
