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The voyage of the Pequod pursuing and condemning the white whale is an allegorical representation of Melville’s conscientious battle against the white Christian civilization and his identity. Most characters on board the ship are either Melville’s agents or parts of his self, of which misanthropic Ishmael, demoniac and god-like Ahab,and Ahab’s shadow and alter ego, Fedallah constitute the core.
The white, or rather “white-washed” whale symbolizes the white Christian civilization and the Christian concept of God that justifies and backs up the civilization while it also represents atheistic Melville’s innermost self that repudiates the Christian God. To Ishmael the whiteness is on the surface the color of “the very veil of the Christian’s Deity” conceptualized as “celestial innocence and love,” whereas it is ultimately the hue of the shroud covering the “charnel-house” lying below the surface of Nature including the human world.
The story starts at the scene of Ishmael “pausing before coffin warehouses” and ends in the act of his drifting on the ocean holding onto the empty coffin as a life-buoy. The empty coffin represents death and naught underlying the seemingly beautified “white-washed” world and symbolizes atheism. The reason why Ishmael alone is saved is that he treats all the people and races equally and has demonstrated true justice and mutual love.
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