🚨 Spoilers ahead. That's the whole point. If you wanted to be surprised, you should have read the book.
Ishmael, a restless sailor, signs onto the whaleship Pequod out of Nantucket with his friend Queequeg. Captain Ahab, who lost a leg to the white whale Moby Dick, reveals he is hunting that whale and nothing else. First mate Starbuck objects. Nobody stops him. The crew chases whales and meets other ships along the way. Finally they find Moby Dick. Three days of chase follow. The whale destroys the Pequod, and Ahab is dragged under by his own harpoon line. Ishmael alone survives, floating on Queequeg's coffin until the ship Rachel picks him up. So much for revenge.
- The plot grew from a real shipwreck. In 1820 a sperm whale rammed and sank the Nantucket whaleship Essex. Melville later read survivor Owen Chase's account, and the Pequod's fate echoes it.
- The first British edition cut the epilogue. The London edition, titled The Whale, left out the epilogue, so readers there never learned that Ishmael lives. Their narrator seemed to go down with the ship.
- Melville dedicated the book to a fellow novelist. The dedication goes to Nathaniel Hawthorne, whom Melville had befriended while writing the book. It is a fan letter printed at the front of a whale novel.
- “Ahab is the one telling the story.” Ishmael would object. He narrates, starting with 'Call me Ishmael.' Ahab doesn't appear on deck until days into the voyage, and he never gets to tell anyone how it ends.
- “Ahab finally kills the whale.” Not even close. Moby Dick wins on day three and rams the Pequod. Ahab's last harpoon throw ends with the line catching his neck and hauling him out of the boat.
- “Moby Dick is the name of the ship.” Boat confusion. The ship is the Pequod. Moby Dick is the whale, a sperm whale, and the only thing on Ahab's mind from the quarter-deck onward.
- If they say: “What keeps Ishmael afloat after the Pequod goes down?”
You say: “Queequeg's coffin. Queequeg had one built when he was sick, then recovered, and it was turned into a life buoy. It pops up when the ship sinks, and Ishmael rides it until the Rachel arrives.” - If they say: “Why is Ahab chasing that one whale?”
You say: “I say it's personal. Moby Dick took his leg on an earlier voyage, and Ahab replaced it with one made of whale ivory. He also nails a gold doubloon to the mast as a bounty.”
🍸 Your Bar Line
Moby-Dick is Ishmael's story of Captain Ahab chasing one whale until it sinks the Pequod, and the only survivor is the narrator, floating on a coffin.
