Moby Dick

herman melville moby dick

call me ishmael it's one of the most iconic opening lines in the history of american literature, and captain ahab one of the most legendary characters.

and yet, moby dick wasn't an immediate success with readers or critics upon its initial release in 1851.

it wasn't until after melville's death in 1891 that the book began to gain its reputation as one of the great american novels.

in the following decades, authors like d. h. lawrence and william faulkner sang its praises, and moby dick's legacy began to take hold.

to be fair, it is an unusual novel.

much of it is written in the very specific dialect of a nineteenth-century sailor, and in many chapters the writing style can jump around from prose to stage play to the retelling of an anecdotal conversation.

plus, despite the book's 600-plus page length, it's relatively light on plot and heavy on digressions that explain the inner workings of both whales and whaling ships, down to the most minute details.

but along the way, these immersive details can illuminate the unique mind of ishmael the narrator, and make you feel like you're there, right alongside the rest of the crew, aboard the doomed pequod.

ishmael and queequeg find a job our story starts with an introduction to ishmael, our narrator as well as one of the characters in the story.

the only hint we have as to the year the tale takes place are the words «some years ago», which means sometime in the mid-1800s.

at this time, ishmael is, in his own words, «a simple sailor».

we're introduced to him as a young man who's travelling from new york to nantucket, massachusetts, in the hopes of finding a job aboard one of the many ships preparing to leave the island.

but since ishmael is also the narrator, who's telling the story from the perspective of an older man, he's far from being simple-minded.

looking back at his adventure, ishmael is now an expert in all things related to the profession of whaling.

from history to marine biology, as well as the ins and outs of every crew member on a whaling ship, ishmael is all-knowing.

he can get quite philosophical about things, but he can also be pretty funny.

and perhaps never more so than when he describes his first encounter with an unusual man by the name of queequeg.

before catching a boat to the island of nantucket, ishmael had first to arrive in new bedford, massachusetts and spend the night at a local inn.

the town being filled to the brim with fishermen and off-duty sailors, and not having a lot of money to spend, ishmael was forced to share not only a room, but also a bed with a stranger.

the only thing he knew about this man was what he was told by the innkeeper.

he's a harpooner, and he likes his meat served raw.

ishmael first encounters this stranger in the dead of night.

half-naked, clutching his covers, he silently observed the man entering his room.

his dark skin was covered in tattoos and his head was shaved nearly bald except for a knot of hair twisting upward.

his teeth were filed down into sharp points, bearing the sign of a cannibal.

he was also carrying a small black carved statue that he proceeded to use in some sort of sacred ritual that ishmael had never before witnessed.

ishmael watched on in fearful silence, which only made the situation worse since the mysterious man had no idea there was someone else in his bed when he finally laid down to rest.

screams and panicked confusion ensued.

but the funniest thing is that once ishmael and the polynesian kwekwek properly introduced themselves to one another, they immediately became the best of friends.

when he awoke the next morning, after one of the best sleeps in his life, kwekwek's tattooed arm was draped over him as though he was his wife.

the two bosom buddies travelled to nantucket together, and after consulting his idol, kwekwek told ishmael that he should decide which ship they should sign up with.

as fate would have it, ishmael chose the pequod, a whaling ship helmed by captain ahab and bound for the pacific ocean in what would be a three-year trip.

it's worth pausing the story here so that we can dissect ishmael a little bit.

it takes over twenty chapters before ishmael and kwekwek leave nantucket aboard the pequod.

in those early chapters, ishmael is both our narrator and our protagonist.

but once he's aboard, things change.

ishmael, the character, fades into the background and other characters like captain ahab come to the forefront.

but through it all, ishmael the narrator is ever-present.

every step of the way, it's not uncommon for ishmael to stop the narrative and spend one or more chapters describing a certain function of the whaling ship, or providing some colourful historical background.

ishmael the narrator is fond of making references to biblical characters like jonah, who famously spent time in the belly of a whale.

he also likes to quote roman philosophers like pliny the elder, reference historical characters like napoleon, and provide detailed descriptions of cultures as diverse as the egyptians and the polynesians.

he's also apt to present a meeting between two characters like it was a theatre play, complete with stage instructions.

all of this implies that ishmael went on to become quite a learned and well-travelled man in the years following his adventure on the pequod.

it's interesting to consider that ishmael is itself a biblical name that denotes the character as being a wanderer and an outcast.

given the amount of knowledge he's sharing with the readers, you can imagine that he never stopped wandering.

it also makes sense, then, that ishmael comes across as a tolerant individual.

while he's initially scared and sceptical of queequeg, he's ultimately open-hearted toward him.

even before he gets to know him by sharing a bed with him, ishmael tells us that it's better to have a sober cannibal as a bedmate than a drunken christian.

as we'll see in the next section, it wouldn't make much sense for ishmael to be a close-minded or prejudiced man since the crew of a whaling ship is a diverse one indeed.

the hands on these ships need to work in harmony with one another, which is something that can be put to the test when the captain has his own agenda.

ahab's reward it took some time before ahab showed his face.

several days had passed since the pequod left nantucket and yet the captain of the ship still hadn't made an appearance before his crew.

up to that point, ishmael had only gotten to know the three mates who served under ahab.

first was the chief mate, starbuck, a thoughtful realist and quaker.

then there was the second mate, stubb, who was ever cheerful and optimistic.

finally, there was the third mate, flask, who was a short and dour man who seemed to have an insatiable appetite for killing whales.

but eventually, once those several days had passed and the pequod was out in the open sea, captain ahab finally emerged from the depths of the ship.

it was quite a moment since ahab was such an imposing figure.

he had a long scar down the side of his face and one of his legs ended with an ivory-white prosthetic.

it was said that the prosthetic had been fashioned from a sperm whale's jaw.

some days later, shortly after breakfast, ahab addressed the crew with a surprising request.

he made it clear to all that he had his own personal agenda in captaining the pequod.

there was but one whale that ahab wanted all of this ship's resources to be focused on, the whale that had scarred his face and taken his leg.

moby dick moby dick was an enormous sperm whale of some notoriety.

it had large patches of white on its head and back that made it instantly recognisable.

it was so notorious and elusive that hunters had come up with a name for the beast.

ahab wanted moby dick all for himself.

but in order to get the crew on his side, he had to give a rousing speech and offer a reward.

he nailed a spanish gold doubloon to the masthead of the ship.

whoever spotted moby dick would be rewarded with the gold.

for many aboard the ship, including young ishmael, ahab's speech and the prospect of the gold coin had the desired effect of rousing the crew and getting them excited.

but there was one important hold-out.

starbuck immediately saw the madness in ahab's mission of revenge, the needless danger he was putting the ship and crew in, both mortal and financial.

after all, the pequod had owners and a mandate.

it was a business.

they were responsible for hunting and killing as many sperm whales as possible, collecting as many buckets of oil and spermaceti as the ship would hold, and bringing it back home.

jeopardising all of that for one whale was irresponsible and sure to cause potentially fatal problems along the way.

at least, that's how starbuck saw it.

most others were happy to abide by their commander's orders.

aboard a ship, the captain was something like a dictator, with power that's rarely questioned.

and so it was aboard the pequod.

despite its epic status, moby dick is actually quite light on plot.

ishmael and queequeg find jobs aboard the pequod, ahab makes his announcement of intent to kill the white whale, and after sailing around cape horn and into the pacific ocean, ahab gets closer and closer to finding his prey.

and then, the grand finale.

really, the story is as much about the digressions and diversions ishmael takes in narrating the tale.

in between the chapters that move the story forward are many other chapters that provide great and humorous detail about what happens when a whale is caught, dissected and processed aboard a whaling ship.

they describe what each station does, how the oil is cultivated and the spermaceti is processed.

other chapters reference obscure scientific texts to analyse the features of the sperm whale.

one chapter details the whale's head, another its tail, and so on.

some of this works as foreshadowing for what's to come, when the pequod finally comes head-to-head with the powerful battering ram force of moby dick.

but it also shows the curiosity that ishmael has and how he values knowledge and appreciates the power and majesty of the sea's great whales.

this is in direct opposition to ahab's perspective.

while ishmael is clearly obsessed with gaining a greater understanding of the whale, ahab is obsessed with destroying it.

while many chapters are devoted to fleshing out ahab's monomaniacal obsession with moby dick, others highlight the ship's mates, starbuck, stub and flask.

starbuck is another character who provides a thoughtful, nuanced counterbalance to ahab's one-track mind.

and given starbuck's position as the first mate, he's the only character who has the status and the courage to confront ahab about his obsession.

which only becomes more dangerous as the pequod has to face dangerous weather in pursuit of the white whale.

and then there are the omens.

throughout the story we learn of various superstitions that sailors have and all the ways in which they can interpret bad tidings from the events that transpire.

when a particularly bad storm hits and lightning strikes ahab's harpoon and sets the boat afire, starbuck sees it as a direct intervention from god to turn the boat around.

but nothing will stop ahab's lust for revenge.

there was one prophecy that ahab is concerned with, though.

that of his own death.

one of the harpooners on the ship tells ahab that before his death he'll see a coffin made of american wood that's not his, and that only hemp will kill him.

ahab takes a small bit of comfort in this fortune.

for one, he believes that there are no coffins at sea.

burials at sea involve the person being wrapped in their hammock and sent overboard.

he also believes that the hemp refers to the ropes that are used to hang people at the gallows.

but little does he know that a coffin was actually made aboard the pequod using american wood, no less.

it was made when queequeg was near death from an illness.

queequeg miraculously recovered and it was decided that the coffin would be sealed airtight and used as a life preserver.

and as any sailor knows, there are also many hemp ropes aboard the ship.

ahab was able to track down the whale through a series of encounters with other whaling boats which were heading in the opposite direction.

in total there are nine of these encounters and each can be read as a warning against the pursuit of moby dick.

if they'd encountered moby dick, these other captains had lived to tell the tale because they made the reasonable decision to give up the chase and head home, rather than continue their pursuit.

the most consequential encounter was with the whaling ship the rachel.

as the two ships passed one another, ahab learned that the captain of the rachel lost his son while trying to kill moby dick just the day before.

he fell overboard and hadn't been seen since.

a search is underway and the captain beseeches ahab to join them.

but ahab won't help.

upon hearing that moby dick is so close he's more obsessed and determined than ever to keep the pequod moving forward.

again, some of the crew, like starbuck, took this heartless decision as another bad omen that was sure to further doom the pequod.

much to ahab's excitement, moby dick was spotted not long after leaving the rachel behind.

this led to three chases, each more disastrous than the last.

in all three, ahab was in the first boat out to try and harpoon and kill the mighty whale.

the first day, ahab's boat is split in two by the whale's jaws.

on the second day, moby dick destroys more boats, killing one of the harpooners.

and finally, on the third day, the whale rammed into the pequod, sending the ship sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

on that third day, ishmael was an oarsman on ahab's boat.

he was knocked out of the boat and left behind as the captain continued his mad pursuit.

as the boat sinks, ahab sees the coffin emerge from the wreckage.

and then, while ahab was able to get his harpoon into the whale, the line got tangled around his neck, sending him down into the depths along with the fleeing moby dick.

ishmael is able to grab the floating coffin and keeps himself afloat while the sinking pequod sucks everything else down into the depths of the ocean.

he's the only survivor of the doomed voyage.

after floating amongst the sharks for a full day, ishmael is eventually rescued by the rachel, still searching for the captain's lost son.

the lone survivor ahab was able to track down the whale through a series of encounters with other whaling boats which were heading in the opposite direction.

in total, there are nine of these encounters, and each can be read as a warning against the pursuit of moby dick.

if they'd encountered moby dick, these other captains had lived to tell the tale because they made the reasonable decision to give up the chase and head home rather than continue their pursuit.

the most consequential encounter was with the whaling ship the rachel.

as the two ships passed one another, ahab learned that the captain of the rachel lost his son while trying to kill moby dick just the day before.

he fell overboard and hadn't been seen since.

a search is underway and the captain beseeches ahab to join them.

but ahab won't help.

upon hearing that moby dick is so close, he's more obsessed and determined than ever to keep the pequod moving forward.

again, some of the crew, like starbuck, took this heartless decision as another bad omen that was sure to further doom the pequod.

much to ahab's excitement, moby dick was spotted not long after leaving the rachel behind.

this led to three chases, each more disastrous than the last.

in all three, ahab was in the first boat out to try and harpoon and kill the mighty whale.

the first day, ahab's boat is split in two by the whale's jaws.

on the second day, moby dick destroys more boats, killing one of the harpooners.

and finally, on the third day, the whale rammed into the pequod, sending the ship sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

on that third day, ishmael was an oarsman on ahab's boat.

he was knocked out of the boat and left behind as the captain continued his mad pursuit.

as the boat sinks, ahab sees the coffin emerge from the wreckage.

and then, while ahab was able to get his harpoon into the whale, the line got tangled around his neck, sending him down into the depths, along with the fleeing moby dick.

ishmael is able to grab the floating coffin and keeps himself afloat while the sinking pequod sucks everything else down into the depths of the ocean.

he's the only survivor of the doomed voyage.

after floating amongst the sharks for a full day, ishmael is eventually rescued by the rachel, still searching for the captain's lost son.

in this chapter, you've learned that moby dick is a classic adventure tale of a young man named ishmael who joins a whaling expedition, only to find himself aboard a ship captained by a man with his own dangerous agenda.

captain ahab is out for revenge and wants to kill the white whale that injured him and took his leg.

the plot is quite straightforward, but the book is well known for the unique way in which it's told.

narrated by ishmael, it contains many detailed digressions into marine biology as well as the history and intricacies of the whaling profession.

this reveals one of the main themes of the book, that ishmael became obsessed with learning about the whale while ahab was obsessed with destroying it.

this obsession for revenge killed ahab and everyone else aboard the ship, except for ishmael, who lived to tell the tale.

thanks for listening.

we'd love to know what you thought of this chapter, so do feel free to leave a rating or share some feedback.

as always, we look forward to seeing you in the next chapter.