On the diverse nation-state of the whale ship Pequod, Pip is one of the few representatives of African-Americans. When jettisoned from a whaleboat, Pip’s perceived loss of sanity is actually the procuring of higher consciousness.  “God’s foot on the treadle of the loom” reveals to him his predisposed, hopeless role in society. Pip beholds his lack of freedom, even as a supposedly free African American. He comprehends the interminable suffering of man, of African-American man. In this omniscient state, Pip is altered into a rejection of his joyous self. He let’s go of his life-endearing character and gives in to African American’s expected function in the nation, as hollow performer. By forcing Pip into enlightenment, Melville impels his readers to examine the true sentiments behind the Fugitive Slave Act: society’s disregard of the suffering of their fellow man.

Pip is introduced directly after Ahab announces his true intentions for the Pequod, in the Midnight, Forecastle. While the other sailors sing and cast their convictions of this doomed mission, they demand Pip to play his tambourine: “Pip! Little Pip! Hurrah with your tambourine!… Here you are Pip… up you mount! Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it, bell-boy!” (188-189) While the other sailors assert their viewpoints and become representatives of their homelands, Pip is forced to be entertainer. Even in the absence of his tambourine, they tell him to become the instrument: “beat they belly then and wag thy ears… Rattle thy teeth then and make a pagoda of thyself.” (188-189)”. Not just his talent, but his body merely exists to serve others. The sailors, ignoring his resistance to play, “Pip! Hurrah with your tambourine! don’t know where it is…” (188) instill his role in society as only existing for the amusement of others. Contrary to his emplacement, Pip holds a sense of dignity. Melville establishes Pip’s sense of self-respect by giving him the last words in this chapter. Pip’s soliloquy ends in prayer: “Oh, thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black boy down here” (193) Although Pip has been placed at the bottom dregs of this make-shift nation, he still holds onto faith, a hope that God may have mercy on him. Pip’s prayer expresses a sense of optimism. Due to this optimism, Pip continues to believe he has control over his own fate. Beneath Pip’s plea, Melville arranges five asterisks ***** to close the chapter. These five asterisks not only conclude the chapter, but they also conclude Pip’s sanity. The asterisks symbolize that this petition for salvation is Pip’s final.

 Pip returns to the novel in his transformative chapter. Leaping from a boat, stranded at sea Pip is “carried down alive to wondrous depths, where… the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps… Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of water heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom; and spoke it” (453-454) In his abandonment, Pip undergoes a wisdom-induced metamorphosis. This alteration saw Pip, who “loved life, and all its peaceable securities” reject his former self. “Pip? Whom ye call Pip?” (567) His vision of the “joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, the… God-omnipresent” (453) divulges to him his harsh reality: regardless of freedom, Pip, and African Americans, are seen as entertainer, a body that exists for the use of others. “the unwarped, primal world” (453) reveals to him the interminable suffering of the Black American. His body remains intact, but the sea “drowned the infinite of his soul.” Pip’s soul has been lost, he is now just a shell of the African American experience.

The shell that is called Pip, bearing life’s unalterable course for African Americans, falls into the role that is initially bestowed upon him. His former self is gone: “Pip? Whom ye call Pip? Pip jumped from the whaleboat. Pip’s missing… Who art thou, boy? Bell-boy, sir; ship’s-crier; ding, dong, ding!” (567) Pip rejects his joyous, brilliant, questioning self and assumes the role of performer just as his shipmates expect. He becomes the bell-boy they demanded during their midnight in the forecastle. In his mad monologues, he constantly sings: “Rig a dig, dig, dig!” “ding, dong, ding!” These chants are reminiscent of what was bellowed at him in the forecastle: “Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it bell-boy!” (189) Pip saw his role in society and stopped fighting it, “he saw God’s foot on the treadle of the loom; and spoke it” (453) Mimicking the demands placed on him as entertainer, cements Pip’s place in society that was unveiled to him during his abandonment; he gives in to his expected function in the nation, bell-boy.

Pip’s revelation of his repressed place in society is new to him, but he finds that the rest of the world has always seen him this way, as constrained performer. His first act of wisdom/sanity is reading the doubloon. While others in the crew read the doubloon and divulge elements of their character, Pip merely says: “I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look… And I, you and he; and we ye and they, are all bats; and I’m a crow” (475). Ishmael shrugs this off, thinking that Pip is reciting his grammar. In reality, Pip is showing his understanding of how humanity views his role in life. All of humanity recognizes the cruelty of slavery and racism. Like Pip says, “they are all bats”, complacently hanging upside down, upholding the system with their silence, and letting the crow go about with his entertainment; cawing, pleading for unanswered help. Pip’s interpretation when reading the doubloon is that humanity has disregarded his people’s suffering.  

Pip indeed goes missing. He has forsaken his former self because “he died a coward; died all a’shiver… Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the Antilles he’s a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward!” (523) Pip rejects his former self’s cowardice, he discards his fear because he no longer lives with expectations of joy for life. Pip, the fearful, jumps from the boat because he loves life so much. Enlightened Pip repeatedly states, “Shame upon all cowards—shame upon them!” (523) He has no favorable feelings towards life anymore, and he does not fear losing it, so he resents cowardice. Intriguingly, Pip, who seems to search for himself, actually knows where his soul must be, “Seek out one Pip… I think he’s in those far Antilles.” (522) His soul ends up in the Antilles with his ancestors who have been left for dead in the middle passage. This further suggests Pip’s newfound mindfulness of the suffering of his people and his role in society. He chastises his lost soul as a “runaway, a coward”, which explicitly cites language in reference to slavery. It provokes sentiments of the Fugitive Slave Act. Runaway, cowardice Pip, “Jerk him off; we haul in no cowards here” (567) Omniscient Pip is denying salvation towards his soul. The narrative of ‘do not save him’ symbolizes the northern man’s predicament: man must deny escaped slaves salvation into their free states. Abandoning Pip’s soul is abandoning all African Americans to toil in the south.

Ahab becomes the only friend of Pip’s. Madness hinders madness. This unlikely friendship is even more surprising when it is formed by Ahab. In witnessing Pip’s awakening, Ahab stretches out a hand to Pip: “What’s this?” Pip exclaims, “Here’s velvet shark skin’ intently gazing at Ahab’s hand, and feeling it, ‘Ah now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing as this, perhaps he had ne’er been lost!” (567) Pip reignites a spark of hope for humanity as he experiences Ahab’s benevolence towards him. When he exclaims that “perhaps he ne’er been lost” if he experienced this compassion sooner, it reaffirms what he experienced deserted in the sea. If Pip had ever felt a sense of gentleness towards him, if he had only been treated as an equal, he would have never been exposed to the God-omnipresent harsh reality of the African American struggle. Ahab’s benevolence demonstrates humanity’s lack of decency, for Ahab has shaken off societal norms. Pip continues: “Oh, sir, let old Perth now come and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the white, for I will not let this go.” Using Ahab to demonstrate social cohesion indicates to the reader that it takes the complete disregard of societal conventions to produce true benevolence to their fellow man. Melville’s imploration for racial harmony reprimands society for inaction.

For Pip, the bestowment of omniscient knowledge drives him mad. This is due to his role in society as an African American during the dissension of slavery. Pip beholds the interminable suffering of his race. Discovering his lack of agency causes him to relinquish his bright self and surrender to societal preconceptions. Pip’s representation of African Americans exemplifies the crippling effects of society’s constrained roles. By forcing a free man to exist solely as entertainer, his humanity is stripped from him. Melville delivers Pip’s jovial soul to his ancestors in the Antilles but leaves his shell of insanity behind to critique the nation of the Pequod.