Meaning: Mortality, transformation, and change.
Depiction: Queequeg's coffin, empty and open, sits on the deck of the Pequod. In the foreground, we see anonymous sailors engaged in work, oblivious to the fate that awaits them all.
Text: Chapter 110- Queequeg In His Coffin
Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter was at once commanded to do Queequeg’s bidding, whatever it might include. There was some heathenish, coffin-coloured old lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin was recommended to be made.
Alternate Depiction: Whale skeleton lying in a glen of tropical palm trees. Smoke emits from its spout from the "unextinguished aromatic flame" tended by local priests (Chapter 102 - A Bower in the Arsacides). I loved the idea of this image, but it really isn't as salient and memorable as Queequeg's coffin (which ends up being Ishmael's salvation). And it doesn't really make you think of death - it's more like a religious relic.
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