The unhappy fate of the man whom choice or chance has alienated from the human community greatly interested Hawthorne, as is well known. The theme held a similar fascination for Melville—even before he became acquainted with many of Hawthorne's tales. The probable discussions subsequently with his friend and neighbor, however, may well have strengthened his interest in the Ishmael motif. As might be expected, Melville explored the moral and philosophical implications of the theme, and out of them he evolved a doctrine of racial and social community as an ideal to set opposite the isolated individual. This positive doctrine need concern us here, however, only in so far as it is implicit in his delineation of individuals who, because of birth or achievement or action or character—a white jacket of some kind, in short—were set apart from normal human relationships. These persons may appropriately be called “Isolatoes,” a term coined by Melville himself in describing the crew of the Pequod: “They were nearly all Islanders … ‘Isolatoes’ too, I call such, not acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living on a separate continent of his own.” In each of his books one character at least is just such an exile, either by accident or volition.