The Whale By John Phillips

Throughout his novel, Moby Dick, Herman Melville will often devote entire chapters to the thoughts and actions of specific characters. Two specific examples of this type of chapter are Chapter 36, The Quarter-Deck, and Chapter 42, The Whiteness of the Whale. The first of these chapters depicts Ahab addressing his crew for the first time in order to convince them to hunt down Moby Dick. The second offers insight to the fear that is brought upon by the mere mention of Moby Dick The significance and effectiveness of each of these chapters are enhanced by Melville’s use of rhetoric and style respectively.

Ishmael explains that typhoons can come out of nowhere while sailing at sea. Many different type of signs occur that night when the typhoon occurred. Initially, the main idea whalers would do during a storm was that they would set up lightning rods but Ahab believes that a typhoon is a sign that Moby Dick is near saying that the 'white flame is the way to the white whale.' Starbuck sees on the ship that Ahab's harpoon blade starts to ablaze. Starbuck believes that this little sign is a sign of God presenting the consequences of hunting down a creature like Moby Dick. The resilience of Starbuck continues with Ahab when Starbuck thinks that the crew should take down one of the main sails but Ahab thinks that it should stay there. This causes disbelief among Starbuck and cannot believe that Ahab would do this, this leads to a strained relationship among the two. Stubb and Flask believe that Ahab is a little crazy and is putting the whole crew in danger. After a long rocky night on the ship, the worst parts of the typhoon is now over. Because of this the crew is relieved and even singing song of happiness and joy. Starbuck discovers below the cabin a rack of muskets

A Long Way Gone     Unlike most subjects, war has effects on so many parts of someones life. War comes with the cost of mental, physical, and overall emotional health. A Long Way Gone is a memoir that was wrote by a boy soldier, Ishmael Beah. The war in Sierra Leone started in March of 1991.

With success come some of the greatest stories of how people got to that spot. If you do try for something almost never will you be rewarded for that particular thing. This plays a role in both of the following books. In Whale Talk TJ must give this team and swimming his all to get what he wants in getting his team a varsity letter. When new requirements set back the team from getting their varsity letter TJ take it upon himself to lead and set an example for the rest of his team. Notably, in the book Summer Ball after Danny finds out about what people actually think about him. He takes accepts it and goes harder in camp. He takes nothing for granted anymore.

Captain Ahab always had the desire to go after Moby Dick. His obsession grew even deeper when the great white whale took his leg. He spent several years trying to go after the whale. By being the captain of the ship, he had crew members come along on his journey to help slay the whale. His passion grew deeper each day as he lived amongst the ship and set sails to complete his mission.

Queequeg and Ishmael have a brotherhood that is a central theme of the novel. When the two smoke together and vow to share with each other materials and hardships, Queequeg defines them “wedded”. This interracial friendship was a leap for Melville, but crucial in order for the readers to understand the two. Ishmael takes his friendship with Queequeg and extends it to his fellow shipmates. He even squeezes other men’s hands while squeezing spermaceti in the tubs. Other characters, Ahab for example, reject friendship. He pushes Starbuck away from him and Pip as well for fear that the sympathy and brotherly love that friendships bare would ruin his madness and interfere with his relationship to Moby Dick.

He constantly invests his time and jeopardizes his crew's lives in his effort to confront his faulty God.  Because of his need for religious comfort, Ahab turns the whaling voyage into a personal quest, using his crew as a tool for revenge.  Melville parallels his work to The Bible to raise the character of Ahab to a higher level.  The Bible is known to most readers around the world.  Its lessons and values teach people how to lead moral and virtuous lives.  Ahab's nature and obsession demonstrate his evil, but comparing him to the Biblical King who sinned against God and poorly ruled God's people makes Captain Ahab's evil represent an extreme of human nature.  In "declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immorality is but ubiquity in time)" (Moby 181), Melville shows how Moby Dick appears to be God-like.  As the real God watches over all his people no matter where they are, Moby Dick is found everywhere at the same time.

The narrator, due to his ambition, left his Manhattan home on a cold, windy night to catch a whaling ship. On missing a boat to the port, Ishmael found himself a cheap lodging, where he shared a bed with Queequeg, a Polynesian harpooner. The harpooner had a bloodcurdling appearance and initially threatened to kill Ishmael for trespassing his bed space. For the sailors, the “pursuit of happiness” meant braving the seas and embarking on long, and sometimes, torturous journeys to and from Africa and within the Americas. Also, it included sacrificing their lives to receive a gold doubloon for killing Moby Dick, a large sperm whale.

Moby-Dick is considered to be one of, if not the, best novels in American history. Harper & Brothers first published it in 1851 in New York. In England, it was published in the same year under the title, The Whale (“Moby Dick”). Melville explores topics and themes that were scarcely spoken of and never even seen in a novel. In the novel, the Pequod, which is the ship, is named after a Native American tribe that was exterminated when the white settlers arrived. It is a symbol of death and doom and foreshadows event that occur later in the novel. Melville brings some very controversial themes to light in the novel. Revenge is one of the main themes of Dark Romanticism and Melville uses it to drive every action taken by Ahab. This is seen early on in the novel as Ahab explains to the crew why he has a peg leg and that he wants to enact his revenge on Moby Dick (Melville 160-161). “Moby Dick is, fundamentally, a revenge tragedy. It’s about one man’s maniacal obsession with vengeance. It’s about finding an object on which to pin all you anger and fear and rage, not only about your own suffering, but also about the suffering of all mankind” (“Moby

As the pursuit of Moby continues, Ishmael is left behind in the water far from the Pequod and where the rest of the crew ultimately die from the whirlpool Moby creates in the side of the Pequod. Ishmael avoids the wrath of Moby on Ahab, and the whirlpool from the sinking Pequod. Melville writes that “the Fates ordained” (625) Ishmael’s survival and that because of Fedallah’s death, he lives. For the philosophical reason of Ishmael’s survival from Moby’s wrath it was quite straightforward. Ishmael did not intently seek out the destruction of Moby and so is spared from the fate of the crew. Ishmael was on the Pequod not to seek out vengeance, but to find truth and because of his neutrality he was spared.

While Ahab was still the obedient captain he once was, he was one of the most successful and higher rewarding captains. Unexpectedly, in the midst of a whaling, Ahab and his crew encountered the whale he now refers to as “Moby Dick” or “the white whale.” The crew initiated in capturing the whale, but this whale was different. Rather than capturing the whale, the whale captured Ahab and though Ahab escaped, he did not escape entirely. Moby Dick had dismembered and consumed half of one of Ahab’s legs. Ever since this incident, Ahab’s one and only desire or, as stated in the text, “...his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought” has been to kill Moby Dick; which soon turns him obsessive (Melville). Ahab would not let anyone or anything stop him from achieving his goal, “...’I’ll chase him ‘round Good Hope, and ‘round the Horn, and ‘round the Norway Maelstrom, and ‘round

Then Ishmael wanted to go whaling so he set off to go to Nantucket. But on the way when he stopped in the Spouter inn where he met a harpooner named Queequeg. Ismael and Queequeg became best friends and then when they got to Nantucket they boarded the Pequod. But Ishmael boarded a boat with Ahab also. The crew that boarded the Pequod is Ishmael, Ahab, Starbuck, Stubb and Flask.

Consequently due to his personal growth as a character, Ishmael's divine spirit becomes saved and he himself is rescued from certain death. Captain Ahab remains unable to accept the concepts of transcendentalism, his pursuit of Moby-Dick is relentless and without mercy. His character has no opportunity for growth or discovery as he shuns the advice of everyone, whilst in pursuit of the white whale. Due to this his fate becomes irrevocably sealed and he is doomed to fail his mission and perish at the mercy of his quarry.

The part-time narrator of the novel, Ishmael, is the first of the many biblically alluded names displayed to the reader. Within 40 pages of his introduction, Ishmael immediately provides a snide comment in regards to Queequeg stating that, “‘Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian’”(Melville). In reading this comment one might question why Melville would use Ishmael as a narrator to novel heavily weighing on religion. Well, the name Ishmael was derived from the

Similar to Ahab, the Samuel Enderbys’ captain has donated a limb to Moby-Dick, but unlike the Pequod’s leader, the Englishman wants to keep away from the White Whale, arguing, “ain’t one limb enough? What should I do without this other arm? … He’s best left alone” (368). The one-armed captain, head of a ship named for a wealthy British merchants, describes his experience to the one-legged monomaniac, who is overly excited, but the Englishman does not approach the experience as a spiritual battle like Ahab. Interrupting the captain, Ahab exclaims his highlights of his effect on the whale, claiming credit for the harpoons and scars decorating that wild beast. The Samuel Enderby’s captain continues “good-humoredly” (365). The Englishman did not know that he had lost his arm to the Moby-Dick for some time after the attack, but when he found out the identity of his opponent, he forfeited two chances to repeat his attempt at capturing oil from the White Whale. To the Englishman’s sage like attitude, Moby-Dick was nothing more than a remarkably profitable catch, while to