Pip (Moby-Dick character)

Pip, short for Pippin, is the African-American cabin-boy on the whaling-ship Pequod in Herman Melville's 1851 novel, Moby-Dick. When Pip falls overboard he is left stranded in the sea, and rescued only by chance and becomes "mad." The book's narrator, Ishmael, however, thinks that this "madness" gives Pip the power to see the world as it is. Pip is first described as "insignificant," but is the only member of the crew to awaken feelings of humanity in Ahab, the ship's monomaniacal captain.

Critics say that Pip shows Melville's use of irony and contradiction to explore race relations and human rights in the 19th century United States.

Pip Cliffs is a site in the Antarctic Peninsula, one of a group named after characters in Moby-Dick.