In the Heart of the Sea

Throughout the entire journey, Owen Chase and Matthew Joy kept getting in Captain Pollard's way. From the moment he left, he was challenged at every turn. It is always a good thing for a leader to be challenged because it helps him grow as a captain. Then again, Captain Pollard “...embraced a more democratic style of command,” where he lacked the strict and overbearing leadership attitude. Also, having a 'democratic style' of command on a ship full of man is never a great idea. More importantly, that strict and overbearing attitude is exactly what a whaling captain should have, and Owen

    One might say we are presented with two fish stories in looking at Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, a marlin in the former and a whale in the latter.  However, both of these animals are symbolic of the struggle their hunters face to find dignity and meaning in the face of a nihilistic universe in Hemingway and a fatalistic one in Melville.  While both men will be unable to conquer the forces of the universe against them, neither will either man be conquered by them because of their refusal to yield to these insurmountable forces.  However, Santiago gains a measure of peace and understanding about existence from his struggles, while Ahab leaves the

In the novel “In the heart of the Sea” Nathaniel Philbrick introduces the reader to Nantucket Island located in the east coast. He establishes the importance of the whaling industry in relation to the island. Philbrick does an incredible job of telling the story of 20 regular men doing their jobs whaling. They set sail on a renewed ship called the Essex. The Essex took a beating from a storm before it finally met its match an angered sperm whale. The whale rammed the ship to the point beyond repair. It forced the whalers to put what they can on to the smaller whaler boats. Surviving at sea with limited resources the sailed until they were completely out of everything. The men resorted to the ultimate

Moby Dick, a book about the voyages and pursuance of a white whale, was imagined by an incredible man. Herman Melville was a talented writer who wrote many fantasies and adventures, including Moby Dick. He’s most infamous for his work about the tale of the white whale and known less for his works of Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life and Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas. (“Herman

Herman Melville’s short story “Benito Cereno” or “The Other Moby Dick” as Greg Grandin, a contributing writer for Mother Jones magazine, refers to it, is a fictionalized account of an encounter that an American ship captain and seal killer/trader by the name of Amasa Delano had in February 1805 in the South Pacific (Grandin). Delano, who was “quick to flog his men,” was “the sort of American sea captain Melville knew well and hated” (Stuckey 271). Delano chronicled his encounter in “A Narrative of Voyages and Travels, in the northern and southern hemispheres: comprising three voyages around the world, together with a voyage of survey and discovery in the Pacific Ocean and Oriental Islands” (Boston, 1817). Arguably one of Melville’s best works, “Benito Cereno” in all of its ambiguity is more than a fictionalized account of a seafaring vessel and its less than admirable captain, it is a historical reflection of what was happening in the world during the time it was written.

The most significant decision made came from Captain Pollard, who wanted to choose what would have been the better option, but listened to the other officers and decided to sail a different route to South America, rather than go west, which would have been a shorter distance to the safety of shore. The men's speculations about the unknown contributed to their fear to sail for other islands in that area. Another costly decision. Soon thereafter the negative consequences began to reek havoc on the crew. Hunger, thirst, weather and even another attack from a whale added unneeded side effects. The saltwater burned their open wounds, their skins were severely sun burnt, not to mention toll that the loneliness played on the crew’s ability to mentally withhold the circumstances. The difficult decisions they made ultimately led to situations and experiences that the crew would hope to forget. On the other hand, they were able to make some smart choices. They made sails for their smaller boats from the damaged Essex, and raised the sides of the boats to prevent waves from crashing aboard. Soon after all the abuse their bodies took, they reached the Henderson Islands. The days spent there provided the shipmates with slightly sufficient quantities of water, and a good supply of food. Although the Henderson Islands were not enough, the crew was still reassured and somewhat recuperated for what lied ahead. Two died shortly after departure from the islands and were

In the time of The Essex and In the Heart of the Sea, Nantucket had a population of about 7,000, most of the population living along a road on a rising hill marked with windmills and church steeples. At the waterfront, four large docks extended more than 100 yards into the sea from the harbor. Tied up to these docks were typically 15 to 20 whale ships, along with dozens of other small fishing boats and ships that carried trade goods to and from the island.The first whaling boats were only 20 feet long, launched from beaches along the island’s south shore. Usually a boat would comprise of five Wampanoag (Nantucket Natives) and a white man steering the boat. These boats were only used for whaling around the island, as the had to be rowed back

Moby Dick is considered by some to be the greatest piece of literature, but yet the some of the same people have not grasped its meaning entirely. This story is full of conflict, climax, and complications; that is why I have decided to analyze it and decipher some of its meanings.

Intratextually, Melville portrays the Pequod shipmates as swept away by Ahab’s romantic, neo-Shakespearean language: “to chase that White Whale… over all sides of the earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out… wilt thou not chase the white whale? Art not game for Moby-Dick?” thus creating a “deputation from all isles of the sea, and all ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod”, embarking on a shared experience and process of discovery. Metatextually, this same romantic, neo-Shakespearean language, as well as the sheer weight and volume of the novel awes audiences. As a marketable product itself, the novel allows for uniform creative discovery, as well as intellectual discovery (given the scientific chapters of the novel), for audiences across contexts. Thus, we can see that the emotional appeal of discoveries allows for its commodification and mass consumption creating unvaried rediscoveries by individuals across

Moby-Dick is considered to be one of, if not the, best novels in American history. Harper & Brothers first published it in 1851 in New York. In England, it was published in the same year under the title, The Whale (“Moby Dick”). Melville explores topics and themes that were scarcely spoken of and never even seen in a novel. In the novel, the Pequod, which is the ship, is named after a Native American tribe that was exterminated when the white settlers arrived. It is a symbol of death and doom and foreshadows event that occur later in the novel. Melville brings some very controversial themes to light in the novel. Revenge is one of the main themes of Dark Romanticism and Melville uses it to drive every action taken by Ahab. This is seen early on in the novel as Ahab explains to the crew why he has a peg leg and that he wants to enact his revenge on Moby Dick (Melville 160-161). “Moby Dick is, fundamentally, a revenge tragedy. It’s about one man’s maniacal obsession with vengeance. It’s about finding an object on which to pin all you anger and fear and rage, not only about your own suffering, but also about the suffering of all mankind” (“Moby

n Moby Dick Starbuck realizes that the hatred which Ahab harbors for the white whale is preternatural, not merely vengeance for the loss of his leg. for, Ahab perceives the great whale as possessing characteristics beyond its apparent nature. Starbuck cries, "vengeance on a dumb brute!... that simply smote thee from blindes instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, captain Ahab, seems blasphemous." (Moby Dick) having heard this, Ahab replies, addressing the entire crew, "Hark ye yet again--the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning things put forth the moldings of it features from behind the unreasoning

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick illustrates a journey across seas in pursuit of discovery, freedom, and vengeance. From the beginning, an aura of mystery surrounds Captain Ahab, as Melville waits to introduce him until well into the novel. The obscurity surrounding Ahab causes an uneasiness amongst the crew that continues throughout the novel. After the attack that left him missing a leg, Ahab views Moby-Dick as evil personified; to Ahab, killing the whale means killing all evil. Ahab’s thirst for blood turns him into a cold-hearted man whose sole purpose is to crucify the white whale.

As with The Yellow Wallpaper, Moby-Dick is based on Hermann Melville's real experience aboard a whaler, with countless parallels between his time on the Acushnet and the happenstance of the events in the novel. In addition, Melville incorporates historical events from his lifetime, including the sinking of the Nantucket ship Essex and the alleged killing of the whale Mocha Dick, who attacked ships with premeditated ferocity. In the dense pages of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, there emerges a message about revenge’s resulting descent into madness. After the whale Moby Dick destroyed his boat, captain Ahab attempted to attack the whale, however he ended up suffering the loss of his leg. With a lack of medical care while voyaging across the seas,

Herman Melville, in his renowned novel Moby-Dick, presents the tale of the determined and insanely stubborn Captain Ahab as he leads his crew, the men of the Pequod, in revenge against the white whale. A crew mixed in age and origin, and a young, logical narrator named Ishmael sail with Ahab. Cut off from the rest of society, Ahab attempts to make justice for his personal loss of a leg to Moby Dick on a previous voyage, and fights against the injustice he perceived in the overwhelming forces that surround him. Melville uses a series of gams, social interactions or simple exchanges of information between whaling ships at sea, in order to more clearly present man’s situation as he faces an existence whose meaning he cannot fully grasp.

In the Heart of the Sea is the story of the ship The Essex and it 's few surviving men and their horrific story of the whale that brought them down. It is the true story that helped inspire the famous Novel Moby Dick...however after watching this I think I would have preferred to see the movie Moby Dick instead of its inspiration. We start the story with Herman Melville the author of Moby Dick played by Ben Whishaw (Skyfall, Cloud Atlas, Stoned) as he makes his way to the home of Tom Nickerson; Brendan Gleeson (The Company you Keep, Edge of Tomorrow, Green Zone) who is now the last living survivor of the Essex. Mr. Nickerson, nor any of the other survivors for that matter, has never told the events that happened while stranded out on sea and with good reason. But Melville is desperate and after a lot of whining and a healthy sum of money Mr. Nickerson agrees to tell him the story. We are then brought into a recap of the day 's leading up to the Essex 's departure with Benjamin playing a rich and spoiled Captain George Pollard and Chris playing the grudging first mate Owen Chase. Tom Nickerson, just a boy then, was