"Moby dick" by Herman Melville

                              

   

                         The tale of Moby Dick by Herman Melville, is seen through the eyes of Ismael, a young man aspiring to be a sailor. He meets Captain Ahab of the Pequod, a whaling boat. The purpose of their excursion is to hunt whales and profit by harvesting their oil. However, he is driven to seek revenge against Moby Dick, a great white whale who took his leg. It is apparent by the first day, when he offers a reward for whoever harpoons Moby Dick.

                           The captain of the ship, the dark brooding Ahab, is obsessed with hunting a giant white sperm whale, Moby Dick. Some years ago during an encounter at sea, Moby Dick had bitten off Ahab’s leg. Thirsting for revenge, the one-legged Ahab decides to hunt the whale down. Thus, Ishmael, along with the ship's crew, is caught under the spell of Ahab’s obsession for Moby Dick.

                              Several days into the voyage, Ahab finally appears as a man seeminglymade of bronze who stands on an ivory leg fashioned from whalebone. He eventually gets into a violent argument with Stubb when the second matemakes a joke at Ahab's expense, and kicks him. This leads Stubb to dream of kicking Ahab's ivory leg off, but Flask claims that the kick from Ahab is a signof honor.At last, Ahab tells the crew of the Pequod to look for a white-headed whalewith a wrinkled brow: Moby Dick, the legendary whale that took Ahab's leg.Starbuck tells Ahab that his obsession with Moby Dick is madness, but Ahabclaims that all things are masks and there is some unknown reasoningbehind that mask that man must strike through. For Ahab, Moby Dick is thatmask. Ahab himself seems to recognize his own madness. Starbuck beginsto worry that the ship is overmatched by the mad captain and knows that hewill see an impious end to Ahab.

                          Moby Dick is a huge white whale. He was responsible for Captain Ahab losing his leg. Now Ahab is obsessed with destroying him. Despite being written during a time when whaling was acceptable in the western world Melville shows a distinct sympathy for the whales who were destroyed in their thousands by the whaling industry. The protagonist in this novel is Ishmael, an ex-schoolteacher who arrives in the coastal town favoured by whalers and signs up as a deckhand. He befriends Queeqeg, a harpooner, who helps him adapt to life aboard ship. Melville describes his subjects down to the very last detail so this book is almost as good as a text book on the whaling industry and the whales themselves. Ahab is one of those dark and brooding characters familiar in literature who is prepared to risk his ship, his crew and his life to capture his prey. Moby Dick, however, thinks differently and evades Ahab till the end.