Moby Dick
Moby-Dick is written by Herman
Melville in 1851. It recounts the adventures of the narrator Ishmael as he
sails on the whaling ship Pequod under the command of Captain Ahab.
Ishmael believes he has signed onto a routine commission aboard a
normal whaling vessel, but he soon learns that Captain Ahab is not guiding the
Pequod in the simple pursuit of commerce but is seeking one specific whale,
Moby-Dick, a great while whale infamous for his giant proportions and his
ability to destroy the whalers that seek him. Captain Ahab's wooden leg is the
result of his first encounter with the whale, when he lost both leg and ship.
But Captain Ahab is bent on revenge and he intends to get Moby-Dick. Ahab
demonstrates erratic behavior from the very beginning and his eccentricities
magnify as the voyage progresses. As the novel draws to a conclusion, the
Pequod encounters the whaling ship Rachel. The Rachel's captain asks Ahab to
help him in a search and rescue effort for his whaling-crew that went missing
the day before - and the captain's son is among the missing. But when Ahab
learns that the crew disappeared while tangling with Moby-Dick he refuses the
call to aid in the rescue so that he may hunt Moby-Dick instead. The encounter
with Moby-Dick brings a tragic end to the affair. Ishmael alone survives, using
his friend Queequeg's coffin as a flotation device until he is ironically
rescued by the Rachel, which has continued to search for its missing crew.
For
me, the novel is really good and I love reading it again and again. I even kept
a copy with me. The style and content-wise is perfect. Although it’s long, I
still wanted it so bad because the adventures Captain Ahab and Ishmael had were
so interesting. Most people find it boring for its length but if you’ve got to
read it well, you would appreciate why. Also, this story could inspire those
handicapped more through Ahab’s story that no matter what happens, even if a
foot or hand was cut, life must go on. It also teaches us different things like
never to plant hate to someone and to always listen to the advice of somebody
else to keep ourselves from danger.
I also love this novel because
it is based on reality. This novel is based on Melville’s historic acquaintance
with a 60-year old man in Nantucket who had captained the Essex, the
ship that had been attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in an 1820 incident that
had inspired Melville’s novel. Captain George Pollard Jr. was just 29 years old
when the Essex went down, and he survived and returned to Nantucket to
captain a second whaling ship, Two Brothers. But when that ship wrecked
on a coral reef two years later, the captain was marked as unlucky at sea—a
“Jonah”—and no owner would trust a ship to him again. Pollard lived out his
remaining years on land, as the village night watchman.
If you have to read Melville’s
life and his works, there are many great things you would really learn. He’s a
genius writer and his works are perfectly created because the words he used are
awesomely crafted. The novel is not only a great American classic, but is also
heralded as one of greatest novels in the English language.
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