Moby Dick

novel by Herman Melville

 published in London in October 1851 as The Whale and a month later

in New York City as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.
 When Moby Dick was first published, the public was unimpressed. It
sold fewer than 4,000 copies in total, including fewer than 600 in the
United Kingdom. It was not until the mid-20th century that the work
was recognized as one of the most important novels in American
literature.
 It is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
 Moby Dick is generally regarded as Melville’s magnum opus and one
of the greatest American novels.
 The action of Moby Dick takes place largely on Captain Ahab’s
whaling ship, the Pequod, while sailing in the Atlantic, Indian, and
Pacific oceans.
Herman Melville
American author
 Melville’s heritage and youthful experiences were perhaps crucial in forming
the conflicts underlying his artistic vision.
 He was the third child of Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill, in a family that
was to grow to four boys and four girls.
 permanently weakened eyesight

 One grandfather, Maj. Thomas Melvill, was a member of the Boston Tea Party
in 1773 and was subsequently a New York importer.
 The other, Gen. Peter Gansevoort, was a friend of James Fenimore Cooper and
famous for leading the defense of Fort Stanwix, in upstate New York, against
the British.

 When the family import business collapsed in 1830, the family returned to
Albany, where Herman enrolled briefly in Albany Academy.
 Allan Melvill died in 1832, leaving his family in desperate straits.
 The eldest son, Gansevoort, assumed responsibility for the family and took
over his father’s felt and fur business. Herman joined him after two years as a
bank clerk and some months working on the farm of his uncle.
 became an active member of a local debating society.
 A teaching job in Pittsfield made him unhappy, and after three months he
returned home to his family.

Summary of the piece:

1. The different men aboard the ship, the dangers it encounters, and the
struggles those on board must face all mirror the differences, dangers, and
struggles of human life in society. As a small society separated by distance
from the rest of humanity, it also represents both isolation and community.
The small boat on a revenge quest afloat in what seems like a timeless infinite
sea is a symbol for the grand cosmic meaninglessness of our own mortal lives
in the face of unfathomably powerful forces we exist within.
2. In the climax of the novel, on the third and final day of fighting, Moby Dick
sinks the Pequod and kills Ahab. In the falling action, Ishmael survives by
floating on Queequeg's coffin. In the resolution, the narrator is rescued and he
alone lives to tell the tale. The central crew of the Pequod comprise the cast of
characters chasing the titular white whale in Herman Melville's masterpiece,
Moby Dick.
3. The Pequod is owned by Captain Bildad and Captain Peleg. but it is Captain
Ahab who is the ultimate authority on board the ship when it is at sea. Ahab
expects total obedience. and among the crew there are higher-ranking and
lower-ranking positions. Hierarchy is important aboard the ship, as is
obedience, so this theme is inherent in the setting of the novel. The
relationship between master and slave is also historically relevant at the time
of the novel's publication, ten years before the beginning of the Civil War.
4. Captain Ahab is both a protagonist and tragic hero, complete with a fatal flaw.
Several days after the Pequod sets sail, Captain Ahab finally emerges from his
cabin. His leg is made of whalebone, he has a long, ugly scar, and he has an
intense demeanor that adds to the mystery surrounding him. Ahab's arrogant
quest for vengeance against the White Whale drives the events of the plot, as
the fates of all aboard the Pequod are tied to the outcome of Ahab's mad
mission.
5. Ahab believes Moby Dick to be the physical form of evil and malice. Yet
symbolically, the white whale represents the unknowable nature of God, the
absolute power of the natural world, and the inevitability of fate. Queequeg is
covered in fearsome tattoos and has a tendency to perform everyday activities
with his harpoon. But he's anything but a scary person, becoming a great
friend to Ishmael.
6. Ahab reveals his true mission, not to hunt sperm whales, but to hunt one in
particular, and not for profit, but for revenge. Ahab is obsessed with his quest
for vengeance against the white whale Moby Dick, a sperm whale responsible
for the loss of Ahab's leg. Captain Ahab nails a gold coin to the master of the
ship and tells the men that whoever finds Moby Dick will earn it as a reward.
All of the men except Starbuck enthusiastically agree to this quest for
vengeance.
7. Do humans have the authority to dominate forces God has decreed to be
beyond human comprehension? Father Mapple preaches that Jonah tried to
disobey God and ended up repenting from the belly of a giant fish, God's
instrument. Old Fleece was born in the slave-owning state of Virginia and
 preaches to the Sharks, and recognizes that man will reject God's
commandment to love one another.
8. In Father Mapple's sermon early in the novel, the whale, or great fish, is an
agent of God's wrath and a call to repentance, and so this too is a symbolic
interpretation of the white whale. In Ahab's madness, however, the white
whale symbolizes evil personified. He throws his entire life into his pursuit of
Moby Dick's destruction and lays his men's lives on the line as well.
9. He makes his way from Manhattan to Nantucket in Massachusetts, making a
close friend in Queequeg along the way. The two ship out together on the
Pequod. Ishmael tells the story of Ahab's mad quest to kill Moby Dick from his
own perspective. both as a young and relatively inexperienced crewman on
the Pequod, and, looking back, as the sole survivor of the Pequod's encounter
with Moby Dick, the man who lived to tell the tale.
10. Its construction seems to bring comfort to Queequeg, after which he
completely recovers, and Ishmael is saved from drowning by the coffin's ability
to float. It is ultimately the coffin that provides a buoy for Ishmael to ride,
allowing him to survive Moby Dick's destruction of the Pequod, letting a gifted
storyteller live to tell the tale. Authority and obedience, destiny and fate, unity
and division, heady cosmic themes that buoy the epic tale of Moby Dick.
11. Starbuck's growing discomfort with Ahab's obsession with revenge causes him
to nearly kill his captain. He holds back based on moral reservations and
thoughts of his wife and child. Ultimately, his hesitation to commit murder
leads to tragedy. Stubb is a humorous second mate whose comic approach is
grounded in something more serious. He's a fatalist. He believes there's little
humans can do to change the course of events, so a person might as well
laugh about it all.
12. The tension between Ahab and Starbuck, who believes that Ahab's quest is
blasphemous and foolish, intensifies, leading to a confrontation between the
two. Eventually, they meet a ship that recently had a run-in with Moby Dick,
and shortly thereafter, Ahab himself sights the white whale. The hunting boats
are lowered, and a dramatic chase ensues. For three days, the crew of the
Pequod tries to kill Moby Dick, who smashes the whale boats and proves to be
nearly impossible to kill.
13. The novel explores the many ways people are separated by race, nationality,
rank, intelligence, and various other categories. These divisions are not
downplayed. Ishmael makes fun of the French and German whalemen while
elevating American ones. Stubb treats the darker-skinned crew with
disrespect. But white men hold all the highest ranks on board. This is set in
time against the backdrop of slavery in the United States, which was being
hotly debated at the time of the novel's publication. Yet the Pequod is a
community, and all men must work together to stay alive. An extra layer of
unity is provided when most of the crew enthusiastically embraces Ahab's
insane mission.
14. In Ahab's madness, however, the white whale symbolizes evil personified. He
throws his entire life into his pursuit of Moby Dick's destruction and lays his
men's lives on the line as well. The ship the Pequod is a critical symbol of the
book, a microcosm of the world itself that represents an Earth populated by
humanity's diversity. The different men aboard the ship, the dangers it
encounters, and the struggles those on board must face all mirror the
differences, dangers, and struggles of human life in society.
15. He cannot see anything majestic about the giant creatures. Indeed, Flask's
whole world is black and white. He's not able to see nuances, and this makes
him an easy target for other crew members. who sometimes trick him with
their words just for fun. The white whale, the ship, and Queequeg's coffin are
the key symbols at sea bound to the story of Moby Dick. Ahab's nemesis,
Moby Dick, or the white whale, symbolizes forces beyond human control,
including nature, God, and fate.
16. He's a fatalist. He believes there's little humans can do to change the course of
events, so a person might as well laugh about it all. This also explains his jolly,
relaxed approach. whether in pursuit of a whale or smoking his pipe. Flask is
the third mate, and not a very complicated guy. He lives to kill whales, and he
pursues that purpose with an unsettling zeal. he cannot see anything majestic
about the giant creatures.
17. In the falling action, Ishmael survives by floating on Queequeg's coffin. In the
resolution, the narrator is rescued and he alone lives to tell the tale. The
central crew of the Pequod comprise the cast of characters chasing the titular
white whale in Herman Melville's masterpiece, Moby Dick. Ishmael is the
young narrator, a man who, in response to feelings of restlessness and
depression, decides to go to sea.
18. Pip, Fadallah, and Gabriel all make prophetic statements that eventually come
true. And even at the end, after Ahab has apparently followed his own will
rather than the will of fate or God, he says he is an agent of fate who must
obey orders. Unity and division is a theme that runs the gamut from Ishmael
and Queequeg's unexpected friendship to the ethnic and religious diversity
among the crew of the Pequod.
19. A mysterious stranger named Elijah warns them about the captain of the
Pequod. In the rising action, on Christmas Day, the Pequod sets out from
Nantucket, loaded with supplies for a three-year voyage of whale hunting.
While Ahab remains locked away in his cabin, Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, the
first, second, and third mates, respectively, keep things running smoothly.
Eventually, Ahab emerges, and Ishmael gets his first glimpse of the mysterious
captain, a brooding man with one whalebone peg leg.
20. Queequeg is covered in fearsome tattoos and has a tendency to perform
everyday activities with his harpoon. But he's anything but a scary person,
becoming a great friend to Ishmael. He performs his duties on the ship
without complaint, even when they're dangerous, and he's enthusiastic about
 harpooning. As a pagan and a cannibal, his friendship with Ishmael helps
develop ideas about spirituality and culture.
21. The hunting boats are lowered, and a dramatic chase ensues. For three days,
the crew of the Pequod tries to kill Moby Dick, who smashes the whale boats
and proves to be nearly impossible to kill. In the climax, of the novel, on the
third and final day of fighting, Moby Dick sinks the Pequod and kills Ahab. In
the falling action, Ishmael survives by floating on Queequeg's coffin. In the
resolution, the narrator is rescued and he alone lives to tell the tale.
22. Ahab believes his fate is wrapped up in the hunt for Moby Dick, and Ishmael
ponders the three intertwined elements of a man's destiny, free will, chance,
and necessity. Pip, Fadallah, and Gabriel all make prophetic statements that
eventually come true. And even at the end, after Ahab has apparently followed
his own will rather than the will of fate or God, he says he is an agent of fate
who must obey orders.
23. In the introduction, Ishmael, the narrator, decides to sign on to a whaling ship.
He travels from Manhattan to New Bedford, where he makes an unlikely
friend, Queequeg, a cannibal from a South Sea island who works as a
harpooner. They decide to ship out together and are able to secure positions
on the Pequod, owned by Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad. A mysterious
stranger named Elijah warns them about the captain of the Pequod.

Characters:

Important Quotes Explained

1. How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures
between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to
each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning.
Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cosy, loving pair.
This passage comes at the end of Chapter 10, when Ishmael is forced to share a bed with the
tattooed “savage” Queequeg at the Spouter-Inn. At first horrified, Ishmael is quickly
impressed by Queequeg’s dignity and kindness. The homoerotic overtones of their sharing a
bed and staying up much of the night smoking and talking suggests a profound, close bond
born of mutual dependence and a world in which merit, rather than race or wealth, determines
a man’s status. The men aboard the Pequod are everything to one another, and the
relationships between them are stronger and more meaningful than even that between man
and wife. Ishmael’s willingness to describe his relationship with Queequeg in such conjugal
terms (“honeymoon”) symbolizes his openness to new experiences and people.
2. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye
cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to
my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over
unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds,
unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!
Ahab speaks these words in his soliloquy in Chapter 37, daring anyone to try to divert him
from his purpose. Though he is defiant, he is also accepting of his fate, asserting that he has
no control over his own behavior—he must run along the “iron rails” that have been laid for
him. The powerful rhetoric and strong imagery of this passage are characteristic of Ahab’s
speech. He uses his skill with language to persuade his crew to take part in his quest for
vengeance, stirring them with suggestions of adventure (“unsounded gorges,” “rifled hearts
of mountains”) and inspiring confidence through his apparent faith in himself as “unerring.”
Just as Ishmael occasionally gets lost in digressions, Ahab occasionally gets lost in language,
repeating the phrase “swerve me” until it becomes almost meaningless, merely a sound. His
speeches thus become a kind of poetry or music, stirring the listener with their form as much
as their content.
4. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a
Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar
out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies
within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the
mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.
This passage comes at the end of Chapter 96, as Ishmael snaps out of a hypnotic state brought
on by staring into the fires of the try-works. The image that Ishmael conjures here is typical
of his philosophical speculation and his habit of quickly turning from a very literal subject to
its metaphorical implications. This passage is a warning against giving in to escapism—
fantasy, daydreaming, suicide—and suggests that woe and madness can be profitable states
for one with enough greatness of soul. For one who is intelligent and perceptive—whose soul
is “in the mountains” and greater than the average person’s—such states of mind provide a
higher plane of existence than contentedness and sanity do for a normal person. In other
words, Ahab may be insane and “for ever . . . within the gorge,” but his inherent greatness
makes even his destruction more important than the mere existence—the “soar[ing]”—of
other, more banal individuals.
Kent, Rockwell: illustration of Moby Dick

 The whale Moby Dick has been interpreted as a metaphor for a great
many things, from the Judeo-Christian God to atheism and
everything in between. The ambiguity that Herman Melville built into
his depiction of the whale makes Moby Dick capacious in its meaning.
 Its fame subsequently grew, not least because it was widely included
in university syllabi in the United States, where it was elevated to the
status of a great American novel. Moby Dick has endured for two
reasons: its virtuosic, bravura writing is a pleasure to read, and its
near-mythical characters and plot have proved accommodating to
interpretations by successive generations, which have found in the
novel representations of imperialism, same-sex marriage, and climate
change.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Moby Dick; Or the Whale, by Herman Melville

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