BOOK REPORT ASSIGNMENT

“MOBY DICK”

BY
MARLON BANDO
16211141019

ENGLISH LITERATURE STUDY PROGRAM

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS
YOGYAKARTA STATE UNIVERSITY
2016
Marlon Bando
16211141019

BOOK REPORT ASSIGNMENT

MOBY DICK

A. Title
- Moby Dick

B. Author
- Herman Melville

C. Publisher
- Longman

D. Year of Publication
- 1851 ( Originally published )

E. City of Publication
- America

F. Theme
- The Exploitative Nature of Whaling

G. Characters / Caracterization :
- Captain Ahab the “grand, ungodly, god like man” he is a complex figure, he
always try to kill Moby Dick. He has avengeful character
- Ishmael is the narrator of this novel, a young man with open mind, he always
wary of Ahab, but as always swept away by Ahab’s charisma
 - Elijah is a good people, the prophet who helps Ishmael. He alerts Ishmael
before he sail.
- Queequeg is a man who opens Ishmael mind’s and save his life. He is very
friendly
- Starbuck the chief mate aboard the Pequo are thoughtful, intellectual man
- Stubb the second mate, even he not quite smart but he have a remarkably
articulate
- Father Mapple he always sermon at the Whaleman Chapel. He always
reminded the story of Jonah / Yunus is that we must disobey our own desires
if we are to learn to obey God.
- Pip the cabin boy, poor man who nearly drowns abandoning in hunting
- Moby Dick is the whale who hunted by Captain Ahab
- Fedallah is the guy who becomes Ahab’s personal harpooning dude.
- Tashtego: Harpooner.

H. Setting :
- Of time : In 1840s
- Of place : In the sea, New Bedford

I. Summary of the Story

Moby Dick is the white whale had taken the left foot of Captin Ahab. Captain
Ahab is a whale hunter who ride the Pequod ship. Since then he grudging to the Moby
Dick. Ishmael is a curious teacher who participated in the tradition fisherman in a city,
called New Bedford in Massachusettsh to hunt whale. On a night Ismhael met with
Queequeg. He finally joined together on a boat belonging to Captain Ahab, who was
accompanied by two his assistant, Starbuck and Stubb.

Moments before Ishmael joined to participate in the ship of Captain Ahab,

Ishmael met old man named Elijjah in the harbor. A man who use ripped shirt and looked
like a mad man. He told to Ishmael that the day will come when you smell a land in the
middle of the sea even there are no land around the sea. The atmosphere will silent and
then Captain Ahab would be killed but he looked like alive and continuous to call the
whole of his crew to catch Moby Dick. All the crew will die include Ahab, and only one
of the crew will be safe. Along with that, Ishmael had seen Captain Ahab’s character.

At the beginning of the voyage, Captain Ahab and the crew get a lot of whales in
short time. The purpose of this cruise to catch whales as much as possible to be eaten of
the people of New Bedford and then the fins are used to make a fuel in there. This is a
noble task, but this noble task turned into the revenge of Captain Ahab because his leg
was gone by Moby Dick’s attack. With his leg made by whale bone, Captain Ahab
promises to their crew who first time saw Moby Dick will give a Spanish gold coin.

In 1842, Captain Ahab and his crew sailed calmly to explore the southern coast of
Africa by seeing a map of the path of travel white whales which has long Captain Ahab
learned. He thought that the Moby Dick will be in the Pacific Ocean during the full moon
appear. They sailed for a long time months and got so many hurdle during Captain Ahab
and his crew sailed, like the weather turns bad. This is what makes the conflict between
Captain Ahab and Starbucks, the one of his crew who wants for normal whale hunting,
but none of the people measure Captain Ahab charisma. So they successfully influenced
by Captain Ahab and then they went continue the hunting of Moby Dick, a vengeful of
Captain Ahab to Moby Dick.

Along the way, there were so many disasters a sign that the Pequod (the ship) is
already deviated from the duty. The first sign is the fall of the scout tower to the sea wich
suddenly vanished like swallowed by the sea, at the same time the weather suddenly
changed. Even the wind does not want to bring the Pequod to destinations. Queequeg is
the crew who was predict the future of the Pequod . He saw very terrible disaster will
come to Captain Ahab and his crew. He saw that the danger will befall Captain Ahab and
his crew, there are so many people would kill on that’s board.
 After some time in the ocean, they finally find Moby Dick. Moby Dick
existence’s marked is always marked by the emergence of a flock of seagulls that
surrounding around the emergence of Moby Dick. At the first they did not successful
caught Moby Dick and lost the track of Moby Dick for a few days, because the wind did
not blowing, so make the crew have to row the ship and pull the Pequod by canoe. And
then the crew of Captain Ahab was desperate because they were saw the size of Moby
Dick. They were very shock because they saw the Moby Dick is very big, and very great.
The size is more than whales as general. They usually did not catch a great whale like
that. They consider that’s will be hard to catch that whale. The crew considers that Moby
Dick is not a general white whale but Moby Dick is a holy white whale. As captain of the
ship, Captain Ahab always give them encouragement to the crew, including Starbucks the
man who had quarreled with Captain Ahab. Even Starbuck intend wanted to kill Captain
Ahab but failed because he realized that Ahab had with him to hunt whales with him.

They found again Moby Dick and Captain Ahab is successful to climb Moby
Dick’s back and pierce his spear in the stomach with angry. But the effort of Captain
Ahab and his crew to kill Moby Dick is useless. With Moby Dick’s large body, Moby can
easily destroy the ship and make the whole of the crew fell into the sea and sink. Captain
Ahab was died with the body tied to Moby Dick. Then Ishmael remembered the words
from Elijah about the fate of Captain Ahab and his crew. Finally the entire crew of
Pequod was killed except Ishmael who survived because coffin that had been made by
Queequeg

J. Comments
- Moby Dick is a fiction novel written by Herman Melville on 1852. This novel
also known as “American Renaissance. Melville was born on August 1, 1819
and one of the authors who produce a stream of romantic novels. Moby Dick
is one of the best novels written by Herman Melville which is also displayed
in drama. The background of this novel about the 1840s and located in a town
called New Bedford, Massachusetts, USA. According to the Injil text, Jonah
 life for some days in the belly of the fish before returning to dry land through
helped by God.

- Moby Dick has epic story, Captain Ahab “Godless, people who act like God”
try to kill Moby Dick but he and his crew failed. This novel is really realistic
as in real life. Whaling is often case in few years now. Realistic description
about whales maybe often found in this novel.

- Although this novel is philosophy, the ending of the story is tragic. Despite
earlier Captain Ahab have a good purpose, but eventually Captain Ahab died.
Although nature is beautiful, but it can be deadly. I think Melville think that
human can’t against nature, and I agree with that.

- Melville tried explains to us about natural exploitation. There are so many

whales were killed because that exploitation. In terms of religious, this novel’s
take on part of the story of Jonah.

- In this novel teach us about the importance of community and brotherhood.

Nature is not supposed to be exploited but must be preserved. From religion
element, we can take a lesson that humans force will not be able to change and
beat the providence of God.

- But I think the weakness of this novel is in the setting of place, the story
mostly happen in the sea and it makes the story became monotonous.