Mehmet Çetinkaya

Prep/C
49

MOBY DİCK
WRİTTEN BY: HERMAN MELVİLLE
Content List
 Herman Melville
 Book Summary
 Characters
• Major Characters
• Minor Characters
 Adaptations
• Films
• Stage And Music
Herman Melville
 Melville was born on August
19, 1819, in New York City.
 His family was wealthy and
he had a happy childhood, but
when he was only twelve his
father went bankrupt and died
soon after.
 He started working as a cabin
boy on the British ship St.
Lawrence and he met the
exciting life at sea.
Herman Melville
 After he got attracted to the sea life, he went to sea on the whaling
ship the Acushnet, but the officers of the ship were very cruel that
they caused Melville and a friend to desert the ship on the island of
Nukahiva where some cannibal people live.
 He began his writing career with Typee, which was a book about life
and the natives on the island of Nukahiva. Then he wrote Omoo, a
novel based on his life in Tahiti. Both books were very successful.
 He became a very popular and respected writer after White Jacket, a
strong protest against the punishments in the U.S. Navy.
 Melville completed his masterpiece Moby Dick in 1851.
Herman Melville
 Some other works of him:
• Mardi (1849)
• Pierre (1852)
• Israel Potter (1855)
• The Piazza Tales (1856)
 He also wrote poems such as:
• Battle-Pieces (1866)
• Clarel (1876)
• John Marr and Other Sailors (1888)
Book Summary
The narrator and the protagonist of the book, Ishmael, who is very
attracted to the life at sea, was searching for an adventure at sea and
decided to go find a whaling ship in New Bedford Massachusetts. While he
was looking for a place to stay he found an inn named The Spouter Inn
and he met Queequeg, who was a cannibal harpooner. Then, they became
friends and they took a boat to the port of Nantucket to sign up with a
whaling ship. Between the three whaling ships, Devil-Dam, Tit-Bit, and
Pequod, they chose the Pequod. Then, they spoke to Starbuck, the first
mate of Pequod, to sign up and spoke about the captain of the ship, Ahab.
After that, Ishmael and Queequeg were walking around the docks and met
a crazy old man, Elijah. He talked about Pequod’s fate and told that there
were demons in the ship and the ship was doomed.
Book Summary
But Ishmael pushed the man and his prophecy out of his mind. The
ship sailed from Nantucket on a cold Christmas morning. They were
struggling while trying to sleep because their captain, Ahab, was
always walking around with his peg leg. After a while, Captain Ahab
called all of the crew to the deck and put a bounty on a white sperm
whale, Moby Dick. The bounty was a huge gold coin and it was for the
first person to detect Moby Dick. After that, all of the crew members
swore to hunt Moby Dick. After a while, the whalers of Pequod found
the first whale of this voyage. While trying to hunt the whale, Ishmael
realized that some men are appearing that he didn’t see before and
thought that those were the demons Elijah was talking about. They
tried very hard to kill the whale but they failed. Then they found
another one and thankfully they managed to kill it.
Book Summary
They harvested the body of the whale and left the leftovers floating on the
sea. For months, nothing special happened but suddenly Queequeg
became very ill and wanted a coffin because he didn’t like his traditions
like leaving the body on a lake with a canoe, so he wanted to rest in peace
in a coffin instead. Ishmael was very afraid of losing his best friend on
Pequod but Queequeg got better as quickly as he became ill and started to
use his coffin as a sea chest. After months of searching for Moby Dick,
finally they had a clue about Moby Dick from another whaling ship,
Rachel. The captain of Rachel had lost his son and wanted help from
Ahab but he declined it because he wasn’t seeing anything but Moby
Dick. Then, they followed his trail and found him. After a brutal fight
between Moby Dick and the crew of Pequod, Moby dick won and the
only Survivor of the fight was Ishmael. He survived thanks to
Queequeg’s coffin and the Whaling ship Rachel.
Major Characters
 Ishmael: The narrator and the protagonist of the book. He is a crew
member of Pequod and close friends with Queequeg. He doesn’t
have a big role in the events of the book but he is the narrator
anyways because he is the only Survivor left from Pequod.
 Queequeg: A skilled harpooner and a cannibal. He is a close friend
of Ishmael and the personal harpooner of Starbuck. He is brave and
friendly. He can not speak English perfectly, so his dialogues are
grammatically wrong.
 Ahab: The captain of Pequod. He lost his leg while fighting Moby
Dick and he uses a peg leg. He is egoist and selfish. He doesn’t think
of anything but hunting Moby Dick.
Major Characters
 Moby Dick: The white sperm whale that the whalers of Pequod are
searching for. He ate Ahab’s leg and killed all of the crew except
Ishmael.
 Starbuck: ‘’Starbuck was a Quaker from Nantucket, and a good,
honest man. He was tall and quite thin, but very strong. If you
looked into his eyes, you could see all the dangers he had faced in
his life at sea. He was a quiet individual who faced dangers calmly,
and he was patient and understanding with his men.’’
 Stubb: ‘’Stubb, the second mate, was a cheerful man from Cape Cod,
who laughed at everything. Even while chasing a whale, he
remained calm and relaxed. His pipe was never far from his lips and
he kept a dozen of them near his hammock.’’
Major Characters
 Flask:’’Flask, a short, robust man from Martha’s Vineyard, was the
third mate. For him, whale hunting was a big joke, and the whale
was just like an enormous water rat. Flask had fun chasing whales
around the world.’’
 Tashtego:’’Tashtego, a strong, muscular American Indian from
Martha’s Vineyard, was Stubb’s chosen harpooner. He had long,
black, shiny hair and came from a tribe of great hunters. He had
replaced his bow and arrow with a harpoon.’’
 Daggoo:’’The third harpooner was called Daggoo, a gigantic black
man, who wore a huge gold earring in each ear. His physical power
was impressive.’’
Minor Characters
 Fedallah: A Persian and the personal harpooner of Ahab.
 Elijah: The crazy old man that tells the prophecy of Pequod to
Ishmael at the start of the book.
 Peter Coffin: The innkeeper of The Spouter Inn.
 Father Maple: The reverend who gave a sermon before they sailed.
 Gardiner: The captain of the Whaling ship Rachel. He lost his son
while fighting Moby Dick and wanted help from Ahab, but Ahab
didn’t help and went to hunt Moby Dick. He saved Ishmael while he
was trying to survive on Queequegs coffin.
Adaptations
 Film adaptations:
 A 1926 silent movie entitled The Sea
Beast, starring John Barrymore as a
heroic Ahab with a fiancee and an
evil brother, loosely based on the
novel.
 Moby Dick, a 1956 film directed by
John Huston and starring Gregory
Peck as Ahab.
 Moby Dick, featuring Jack Aranson
as Ahab, Was filmed in 1978 and
released in 2005. The director was
Paul Stanley.
 Moby Dick, a 2010 film starring
Barry Bostwick as Ahab and made
by The Asylum
 Stage and music adaptations:
 Peter Mennin composed ‘’Consertato
for Orchestra, Moby Dick’’ an
orchestral work commissioned by
the Erie Philharmonic Orchestra.
 Moby Dick- Rehearsed, a ‘’play
within a play’’ directed by Orson
Welles. Welles starred in the original
London production in 1955.
 Moby Dick! The Musical, a West End
musical that premiered in 1990 about
a girls’ boarding-school production
of the classic tale.
Thank You For
Listening 
References
 https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1014
090-moby_dick
 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017354/
 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1694508/
 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452823/re
ference