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In The Heart Of The Sea Chapter Summary

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In the Heart of the Sea is the name of this magnificent book where in the first chapter, Nathaniel Philbrick tries to show us a place where the principal job is being part of the whaling industry. This chapter is the beginning of history, the beginning of tragedy, the one that occurred in the whaleship, Essex. In Nantucket, the whaler’s island, every man had to be a whaler. Even if it wasn’t his dream job, just because it was the only way to survive in the island without being dropped out of the community. Philbrick introduces us to this starting point by quoting the words of Thomas Nickerson, the one who had been taught to “idolize the form of a ship” (Philbrick, 1). What an interesting way to introduce a whaling culture, an island where …show more content…

In Nantucket, there was something different and after quoting all these important facts from the first chapter, it is necessary to remark the social problem that all Nantucketers lived, without the option of living an independent and organized life. That economic system is called capitalism. The way some countries use to control the political and economic movements of every industry it has. Capitalism is the way to create money, starting by one economical source without paying enough to those who work for their family welfare. And this is one of the elements found in this chapter, where this unfairness is a main point to discover the real history behind the tragedy of the whaler’s island. In the Heart of the Sea, is a book that can transport us to a different time, where there is adventure, but also suffering. It is the story of a tragedy, that contains many other stories inside and just with the first chapter- if we read between the lines- we can discover more than just the history behind the title, we can also discover the situations, the problems and the culture that let us know how things worked many years ago. It is not a fairy tale, it is the beginning of what happened in the heart of the

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