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| Edition: | Barron's Educational Series (Hardcover) |
| Author: | Herman Melville |
| Published: | January 2007 |
| Pages: | 48 |
| ISBN 10: | 0764159771 |
| New: | $9.07 (9) |
| Used: | $1.73 (5) |
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Overview
Moby-Dick appeared in 1851, one year after Melville's good friend and neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne published his bestseller The Scarlet Letter and one year before Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among the Lowly appeared and caused such a stir that only The Bible would top it as the bestselling American book of the 19th century.
Book Summary
"Etymology" is the first of two prefaces of sorts. "Supplied by a late consumptive usher to a grammar school", the word origins are for whale. Not only are Classical, Romance, and Germanic languages featured but also the usually overlooked "Fegee" (Fiji) and "Erromangoan" (Erromanga). The second preface is "Extracts", excerpts on whales culled from numerous works by "a sub-sub-librarian". Listed mostly chronologically, the quotations come from fiction, poetry, plays, anonymous sea chanties, the Bible and other religious works, legal references, histories, scientific and naturalist treatises, biographies, economic studies, philosophical texts, travelogues, reading primers, etc. The range shows a number of ways of looking at whales and the people who hunt them and use them, from materialist to political to metaphysical. Only one of the extracts is authored by a woman.
Then comes Chapter 1, "Loomings", when Ishmael, with a mixture of chattiness, seriousness, and humor, begins to talk to the reader about his temperament, the call of the sea, and his contention that every man wants at least once in his life to leave the land behind for the ocean.
Aiming to join a whaling crew, Ishmael heads for Nantucket, the older of the two U.S. centers of the whaling industry. Time problems force him to stop for the night in the newer, more powerful whaling center of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Lacking money, he lodges at the Spouter Inn. The innkeeper, Peter Coffin, puts him in a room with the mysterious tattooed cannibal Queequeg, a harpooner. The two quickly become fast friends; Ishmael even humorously calls the relationship a "marriage", and he joins Queequeg in worshipping his idol god.
The two decide to enlist together on the Pequod, a whaler owned by three captains: Peleg, Bildad, and Ahab. Ishmael and Queequeg have yet to meet their captain when they sign ship's articles, Queequeg drawing a peculiar mark identical to one of his tattoos. Soon enough they discover that Ahab is captain for this voyage, which Peleg and Bildad hope will reap a substantial financial windfall.
As the ship sets sail, other main characters are introduced: the three mates, Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask; and the three remaining harpooners, Dagoo, Tashtego, and Fedallah. For several days, though, an ill Ahab stays below decks, completely out of sight from the common sailors. Ahab finally emerges and plants himself on the quarter-deck, leading Ishmael to ponder his captain's missing leg and the ivory replacing it.
The extremely enigmatic Ahab broods and behaves erratically. He paces the deck, thudding his ivory heel. Stubb suggests that he dampen the sound, but Ahab, furious, calls him a dog. When Stubb objects to the insult, Ahab says, "Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or I’ll clear the world of thee!"
Ahab's eccentricities multiply and intensify. He throws his pipe off the ship. He asks his crew to yell more loudly if they spot a white whale. Then he tells the crew that a gold doubloon will go to the crewman who first spots a "white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw". He then nails the coin to the ship's mast, saying, "God hath struck a cord on this here coin!"
It turns out Tashtego has heard of this white whale, which he says some call "Moby Dick". Starbuck reveals that Moby Dick took Captain Ahab’s leg. With pressure on him mounting, Ahab admits that for him the voyage of the Pequod has no other purpose than to have his vengeance on Moby Dick.
Over the course of the story, the reader is presented with numerous apparent digressions giving scenes and details of whales, the whaling industry, and everyday whaling life. These digressions, sometimes funny, sometimes eerie, and sometimes a combination—often shed light on the ocean of symbolisms and profundities Melville gathers, delves into, plays with, and sometimes strains to surface from. On the other hand, there is always a forward-driving adventure story highlighting various whale sightings, whale hunts, and encounters (again, sometimes spooky or humorous) with other whalers. The combination of more typical plot elements with many other exploratory and curious styles and registers allows Melville to encapsulate and expand on the localized and cosmic significances of a way of life already in decline.
Toward the end of the novel, the Pequod nears Moby Dick's territory and encounters the Rachel, the master of which quickly rows over to the Pequod. He begs Ahab for help in finding a whaling-crew lost in the previous day's hunt, a crew that includes the son of the Rachel captain. When Ahab hears that the whale involved in the crew's disappearance was Moby Dick, he flatly refuses to help the Rachel so he can take up his own search for the whale.
The journey comes to its dramatic and tragic end when the Pequod, sailing despite dark portents, sights Moby Dick. For three long days the ship battles the white whale. Moby Dick shatters the Pequod’s hunting boats and then charges the ship itself, sinking it. Ahab and all the crew drown except for Ishmael, who uses the coffin Queequeg built for himself as a buoy. By pure luck, the still-searching Rachel sails by and rescues Ishmael.
