Research Paper On Moby Dick

Research Paper: Moby Dick Moby Dick is an American classic novel that was published on October 18, 1851. The author was non-other than Herman Melville, he is well known for his two books Typee and Moby Dick. The history behind Melville is quite intriguing, he was born on August 1, 1819 into a life of poverty and would constantly have to search for work in order to help maintain his family. He eventually would find work as a sailor on whaling ships but that would not last him very long as he would constantly abandon the ship due to mistreatment. As is said here “Both were in their early twenties when they shipped from New Bedford harbor on whaleships in the 1840s... both jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands about halfway through their voyages” …show more content…
To start of Ishmael meets Queequeg while in search of a whaling ship, the two quickly become great friends they agree to find work together and they do upon the Pequod, thought they did not meet the captain they agree to work for the Pequod and they set sail. After a little while Ahab finally shows himself and he is wobbly walking on his newly prosthetic peg-leg. Which Moby dick has just given him. He reveals his true goal of getting revenge by killing the white whale, he then nails a gold doubloon to the mast of the ship to motivate his crew members and the set off, looking along the way catching whales both successfully and unsuccessfully. Of course random acts of God such as storms and even deaths occur deep into the journey and the crew takes it as a bad omen. Ahab meets other captains from different ships to where then he demands all their information on Moby Dick. One ship had just had an encounter with the whale who’s captain also lost a limb but he is just glad to have made it out alive and warns Ahab to abandon his goal. But as many could imagine Ahab does not listen. He has too much rage and the reader can sense this by all the babbling and ranting that Ahab says, the reader can see that nothing at this point matters to Ahab except killing the whale. Towards the end Ahab finally spots the whale and launches harpoon boats manned by himself (usually the captain does not endanger himself with that risk) to show how this is personal and he wants to be the one that kills the whale. For three days the harpooners fight the whale only at night do they go back to the ship to resupply. But on the third day of the epic battle. Moby dick rams the Pequod which caused in to sink in a vortex that sucks