| Moby Dick | |
|---|---|
| Moby Dick character | |
 Moby Dick with his head out of the water and breaking a boat in half with his jaws | |
| Created by | Herman Melville |
| Based on | Mocha Dick |
| In-universe information | |
| Species | Sperm whale |
| Gender | Male |
Moby Dick is a fictional white sperm whale and the primary antagonist in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick . Melville based the whale on an albino whale of that period, Mocha Dick.
Ishmael describes Moby Dick as having two prominent white areas around "a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump", the rest of his body being of stripes and patches between white and gray. [1] The animal's exact dimensions are never given, but the novel claims that the largest sperm whales can reach a length of 90 ft (27 m) [2] (larger than any officially recorded sperm whale) [3] and that Moby Dick is possibly the largest sperm whale that ever lived. Ahab tells the crew that the White Whale can be told because he has an unusual spout, a deformed jaw, three punctures in his right fluke and several harpoons embedded in his side from unsuccessful hunts. [4] Yet Ishmael insists that what invested the whale with "natural terror" was that "unexampled, intelligent malignity" which he had shown in his assaults. When he fled before "exalting pursuers", giving every symptom of alarm, he would suddenly turn round and stave their boats to splinters or drive them back to their ship. What seemed the White Whale's "infernal aforethought of ferocity" that every dismembering or death that he caused was not wholly regarded as that of an "unintelligent agent". He bit off Ahab's leg, leaving Ahab to swear "wild vindictiveness" on him. [5] Ishmael, however, is haunted by a "nameless horror" so "mystical and well nigh ineffable" that he could hardly express; it was "the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me". [6]
At the end of the novel, Moby Dick destroys the Pequod. Ahab and the crew are drowned, with the exception of Ishmael. The novel does not say whether Moby Dick survives or not.
Although attacks by whales on whalers were not at all common, there were instances, of which Melville was aware.
One was the sinking of the Nantucket whaler Essex in 1820, after a large sperm whale rammed her 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the western coast of South America. [7] First mate Owen Chase, one of eight survivors, recorded the events in his 1821 Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex.
The other event was the alleged killing in the late 1830s of the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick, in the waters off the Chilean island of Mocha. Mocha Dick was rumored to have nineteen harpoons in his back from other whalers, and appeared to attack ships with premeditated ferocity. One of his battles with a whaler served as subject for an article by explorer Jeremiah N. Reynolds in the May 1839 issue of The Knickerbocker or New-York Monthly Magazine. [8] Melville was familiar with the article, which described:
This renowned monster, who had come off victorious in a hundred fights with his pursuers, was an old bull whale, of prodigious size and strength. From the effect of age, or more probably from a freak of nature ... a singular consequence had resulted –he was white as wool! [8]
Mocha Dick had over 100 encounters with whalers in the decades between 1810 and the 1830s. He was described as being gigantic and covered in barnacles. Although he was the most famous, Mocha Dick was not the only white whale in the sea nor the only whale to attack hunters. [9] While an accidental collision with a sperm whale at night accounted for sinking of the Union in 1807, [10] it was not until August 1851 that the whaler Ann Alexander , while hunting in the Pacific off the Galapagos Islands, became the second vessel since Essex to be attacked, holed and sunk by a whale. Melville remarked:
Melville presents Moby Dick as a symbol of many things, among them God, nature, fate, evil, the ocean, and the very universe itself. Yet the symbolism of the White Whale is deliberately enigmatic, and its inscrutability is a deliberate challenge to the reader.[ citation needed ] Ishmael describes the whale's forehead as having wrinkles and scars on it that look like hieroglyphics. He muses on the difficulty of understanding what he saw:
Yankee Whalers in the South Seas., 66–79
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a Great American Novel was established only in the 20th century, after the 1919 centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.
Ishmael is a character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), which opens with the line "Call me Ishmael." He is the first-person narrator of much of the book. Because Ishmael plays a minor role in the plot, early critics of Moby-Dick assumed that Captain Ahab was the protagonist. Many either confused Ishmael with Melville or overlooked the role he played. Later critics distinguished Ishmael from Melville, and some saw his mystic and speculative consciousness as the novel's central force rather than Captain Ahab's monomaniacal force of will.
Mocha Island is a Chilean island located west of the coast of Arauco Province in the Pacific Ocean. The island is the location of numerous historic shipwrecks. In Mapuche mythology, the souls of dead people travel west to visit this island. The waters off the island are a popular place for recreational sea fishing.
Mocha Dick was the nickname given to a rogue albino male sperm whale that lived in the southeastern Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near Mocha Island, off the central coast of Chile. American explorer and author J.N. Reynolds published an account of the whale in Mocha Dick, Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal, printed in The Knickerbocker in 1839. Mocha Dick was, apparently, part of the inspiration behind Herman Melville's novel, Moby-Dick (1851).
The cetology in Herman Melville's 1851 novel, Moby-Dick, is a running theme that appears most importantly in Ishmael's zoological classification of whales, in Chapter 32, "Cetology". The purpose of that chapter, the narrator says, is "to attend to a matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to follow." Further descriptions of whales and their anatomy occur in seventeen other chapters, including "The Sperm Whale's Head -- Contrasted View" and "The Right Whale's Head -- Contrasted View".
Pequod is a fictional 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship that appears in the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by American author Herman Melville. Pequod and her crew, commanded by Captain Ahab, are central to the story, which, after the initial chapters, takes place almost entirely aboard the ship during a three-year whaling expedition in the Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific oceans. Most of the characters in the novel are part of Pequod's crew.
Moby Dick is a 1956 American color adventure film directed and produced by John Huston, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ray Bradbury. A film adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, the film stars Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart and Leo Genn and follows the exploits of Captain Ahab in pursuing and killing a gigantic sperm whale with whom he has a personal vendetta.
Timor Tom or Old Tom is a sperm whale from the 19th century, referenced in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
Moby Dick is a musical with a book by Robert Longden, and music and lyrics by Longden and Hereward Kaye, first staged in 1990. The plot follows the anarchic and nubile girls of St. Godley's Academy for Young Ladies who, determined to save the institution from bankruptcy, decide to stage Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel in the school's swimming pool. The musical is a mixture of high camp, music hall-style smut, and wild anachronism overflowing with double entendres; the lead role of headmistress/Captain Ahab is portrayed by a man in drag.
Moby-Dick is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville that describes the voyage of the whaleship Pequod, led by Captain Ahab, who leads his crew on a hunt for the whale Moby Dick. There have been a number of adaptations of Moby-Dick in various media.
The Sea Beast is a 1926 American silent drama film directed by Millard Webb, starring John Barrymore, Dolores Costello and George O'Hara. The film was a major commercial success and one of the biggest pictures of 1926 becoming Warner Brothers' highest grossing film. The Sea Beast is the first adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, a story about a monomaniacal hunt for a great white whale. However, the film alters the novel's plotline by establishing prequel and sequel elements that are not in the original story—such as the romancing of Esther and Ahab's safe return, respectively—and substitutes a happy ending for Melville's original tragic one. Some of the characters in the film do not appear in Melville's original novel. The film was so successful that in 1930 Warner Bros redid it in English and German, under the title Moby Dick, with Joan Bennett taking the role of Ahab's love because Dolores Costello was pregnant at the time.
Moby Dick is a 1930 American pre-Code film from Warner Bros., directed by Lloyd Bacon, and starring John Barrymore, Joan Bennett and Walter Lang. The film is a sound remake of the 1926 silent movie, The Sea Beast, which also starred Barrymore. It is the first film adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby Dick that includes a soundtrack.
Moby-Dick is an American opera in two acts, with music by Jake Heggie and libretto by Gene Scheer, adapted from Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. The opera received its premiere at Dallas Opera in Dallas, Texas, on 30 April 2010. Heggie dedicated the opera to Stephen Sondheim.
Moby Dick is a 2010 American science fiction thriller film that is an adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. The film is an Asylum production, and stars Barry Bostwick as Captain Ahab. It also stars Renee O'Connor, Michael B. Teh, and Adam Grimes and is directed by Trey Stokes.
Moby Dick is a 1998 American television miniseries directed by Franc Roddam, written by Roddam, Anton Diether, and Benedict Fitzgerald, and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola. It is based on Herman Melville's 1851 novel of the same name. It was filmed in Australia in 1997 and first released in the United States in 1998. The miniseries consisted of two episodes, each running two hours with commercials on March 15 and 16 of 1998 on the USA Network. This is Gregory Peck's final on-screen role.
Captain Ahab is a fictional character and one of the protagonists in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). He is the monomaniacal captain of the whaling ship Pequod. On a previous voyage, the white whale Moby Dick bit off Ahab's leg, and he now wears a prosthetic leg made out of ivory. The whaling voyage of the Pequod ends up as a hunt for revenge on the whale, as Ahab forces the crew members to support his fanatical mission. When Moby Dick is finally sighted, Ahab's hatred robs him of all caution, and the whale drags him to his death beneath the sea and sinks the Pequod.
Father Mapple is a fictional character in Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick (1851). A former whaler, he has become a preacher in the New Bedford Whaleman's Chapel. Ishmael, the narrator of the novel, hears Mapple's sermon on the subject of Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale but did not turn against God.
Pip, short for Pippin, is the African-American cabin-boy on the whaling-ship Pequod in Herman Melville's 1851 novel, Moby-Dick. When Pip falls overboard he is left stranded in the sea, and rescued only by chance and becomes "mad." The book's narrator, Ishmael, however, thinks that this "madness" gives Pip the power to see the world as it is. Pip is first described as "insignificant," but is the only member of the crew to awaken feelings of humanity in Ahab, the ship's monomaniacal captain.
"Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish" is chapter 89 of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, in which Ishmael, the book's narrator, explains the concept of "Fast-Fish" and "Loose-Fish." If a whale, whether dead or not, is marked by a ship's crew with anything to claim it, such as a harpoon or rope, it is a "fast-fish", that is, it must be left alone by other whalers; if it is not so marked, it is a "loose-fish", which can be claimed by any ship that finds it. The clarity of this doctrine, Ishmael says, prevents disputes from escalating into violence. He describes court cases dealing with disputes between crews of whaling ships, and then extends the concept to society and politics, questioning the concept of ownership and the right to possession.