Essay/Term paper: Moby dick

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Cliff Notes

Moby Dick is an extremely long novel

written by Herman Melville. This book is an epic tale of a

crazed sea captain hunting the whale that bit off his leg told

through the eyes of a school teacher. As the story begins

Ishmael is at the local boating dock looking for work.

Ishmael being a school teacher has allot of time off as of the

moment because the school is at recess, for what reason i

don't know. He is in a tavern talking amongst the whalers.

He asks if they know of any ships on witch he could board

as a hand for the captain. One of the stories he receives is of

a man named Ahab. He is offering good pay and good work

for any man who wants to join him on his ship. the only

problem is that people say that he is a rather evil man.

Ishmael shes one of the ships hands and boards for a trip

witch he will never forget. The ship sets sail and every thing

seems to be going smoothly. Everything except one tiny

detail, Ishmael hasn't seen the captain Ahab. He knows hes

there because he has heard men talking to him, but Ishmael

has yet to see him. When Ishmael finally dose see captain

Ahab he is shocked. The man is a very evil looking person.

Ishmael can see the fire in his eyes. He is shocked by the

pure hatred of witch Ishmael speaks of Moby Dick, the

whale who took his leg. Because Ahab comes off as such an

evil man Ishmael doesn't want to become any sort of a friend

of him. He develops a slight dislikement of him and begins to

call him Stubb when he isn't around. As the story goes on it

describes in very good detail what happens on their whaling

trip. I don't know if this is a normal whaling trip or not

because i don't do much whaling myself. Ishmael describes

in great detail all actions taking place on the ship that he

sees. Until one day. One day as this ship is sailing along a

whale is spotted. It isn't just any whale though, it is Moby

Dick. Ahab becomes what seems to be almost possessed.

He is so enraged with the whale that he orders everything to

be stopped and every man is to concentrate on killing the

whale. He has every man loaded in to the whaling boats and

he begins his chase. He shouts at his men, and screams at

the whale. He curses it as if it were from hell. Captain Ahab

chased the whale for three days. he tried to harpoon the

whale several times but missed with each. Finally on the third

day the whale rammed the main ship while all of her men

were in the whaling boats. The ship sunk. Now that the ship

was gone the whale turned its self on the whalers. The whale

thrashed about and broke up the boats with the men in them

drowning them. During this time Ahab harpooned the whale

but it had no effect. The whale was enraged at Ahab for

trying to gain revenge. Finally The whale smashed all the

boats. With all the boats smashed all the men died except

one. Ishmael.