Moby Dick :: essays research papers

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.