Moby Dick Or The Whale Sparknotes

“Moby Dick or, The Whale” by Herman Melville follows the story of Ishmael, a sailor who finds himself seeking more in life so he decides to join the crew of a whaling ship that travels many oceans around the 1830’s or 1840’s. Ishmael travels from Manhattan Island to New Bedford. There he stays at the spouter Inn but there is a shortage of beds so he must share with a mysterious tattooed harpooner named Queequeg. It turns out Queequeg isn’t a bad guy, so they grow close and soon became great friends. They both get jobs on the Pequod, a whaling ship that is covered with bones and teeth from sperm whales. The crew leaves port on Christmas and the captain isn’t seen until a few days later, he has a leg made out of the jaw of a sperm whale due to it being bitten off by none other than Moby Dick.
They head to the tip of Africa and fail at hunting whales that were spotted. A group of men never seen before emerge, they’re Ahab’s private harpoon crew. They’re leader Fedallah is said to have mystical abilities. A prophet declares that anyone who hunts Moby Dick will meet disaster and this is proven by multiple accidents that occur later. Queequeg falls ill and asks the ship’s carpenter to build him a coffin. However, Queequeg recovers and they use the coffin as a back up life buoy. The ship is hit with a typhoon which Ahab takes to mean he will soon face Moby Dick, but his first mate starbuck believes it to be a bad omen and considers killing Ahab to stop the imminent death of the crew. Ahab confronts the whale and Fedallah gets caught by a harpoon line and dragged overboard to his death. Moby dick, with Fedallah’s corpse caught on it, rams the Pequod sinking it. Ahab, also caught in a harpoon line is thrown out of his boat and dragged to his death. Ishmael was thrown out of the boat and is floating around on Queequeg's coffin until he is picked up by another whaling boat named The