The Whale Hunt - Herman Melville

Many of us have read or at least heard of the story of Moby Dick written by Herman Melville who was born in 1819 in New York. After completing school, he worked for his brother, who owned a store, for a short period of time and afterward in a bank but he liked neither. At the age of nineteen, Herman Melville went to sea on a ship bounded for England; the ship was a trading vessel. In 1841, three years after boarding the trading vessel, he went to sea once again this time though on a whaling ship named "Acushnet". Herman Melville would spend the next four years of his life on this whaling ship in the great Pacific Ocean.

There at sea, he experienced many adventures that many of his popular novels were based upon and inspired by, including his most famous Moby Dick. Herman Melville began writing after returning from his many voyages; he wrote a short story named "The Whale Hunt" which is taken from Moby Dick, published in the year 1851. The following is a summary of "The Whale Hunt".

The main character in this short story is Ishmael who is whaler on the whaling ship Pequod. Ishmael had signed up for the job with a Polynesian named Queequeg who was a harpooner. These two men became friends while sailing together; for days the crew had been hunting for whales with no luck.

One day, Ishmael and Queequeg were up on deck sitting and working their hands slowly with ropes and different tools while keeping to their own thoughts. All was silent and still until out of the silence rand a cry so extraordinary and without control that Ishmael let go of the rope that was in his hands. The cry came from above where the highest mast was and the ships lookout an Indian. The Indian’s body was stretched forward with his arm extended out as far as it would go pointing beyond the ship. The lookout had spotted a school of whales!

The men flew into action; Captain Ahab commanded the four small boats on the ship that had been standing by ready to be lowered over the sides of the ship. The men boarded the four small boats including Captain Ahab who stood in the back of his boat, as he had numerous times, ready to steer wherever the whales led.

The men were now surrounded by rolling waves that were tossing them from one to the other. As Captain Ahab stood in the back of his small boat, he continuously barked out commands to his men. All four boats where rowing toward the whales that were now straight ahead; in an instant, the whales effortlessly lowered themselves toward the bottom of the deep disappearing in its depths.

Captain Ahab, being the closest to the school of whales, knew that they would only dive for a short time, perhaps out of fear or a long time for their own hunt; eventually though they would have to float up for air. The men’s eyes were glued to the spot where the whales had vanished; they now began to skim the surface of the water searching for any trace or sign of the great beasts that were the men’s livelihood.

Out of nowhere it seemed they reemerged quite close to the boats; this time though the whales swam faster than the boats could keep up.

If we could stand to the side and see this scene unfold, we would see the men not only fighting to reach the whales but also fighting the massive waves that rolled and roared from the powerful ocean. We would see four small boats being pulled up to the top of waves and balancing on top of them as if they were seesaws afterwards; they would dip down till they made full contact with the water once again and slip to the base of the waves only to repeat the action once again. Behind the four boats you would see the wondrous sight of the strong Pequod following directly behind them standing strong and firm against the waves; a ship that had become a place of refuge and safety for the men, their home on the vast ocean, a home away from home.

The whales began to separate and along with them, the boats. Off in the distance a storm begun to form and moved toward the boats. The men tried to hunt in the storm, but it had brought fog with it; all of the boats returned to the mother ship except for one: Ishmael’s and Queequeg’s. The fog had become so dense that the sight of the Pequod and all three of the smaller boats had all but disappeared. The lone boat still had the whales in its view and was close enough to make a kill; Queequeg stood up with a harpoon in one of his muscular hands saw the back of one of the whales and let his harpoon go. At that same instance something pushed against the bottom of the boat and turned it throwing the men in different directions; the harpoon that was thrown barely scraped its prey. The boat had much water in it but was whole; the men grabbed the floating oars and swam for their boat pulling themselves back in. The storm was now a raging beast that threw the boat with the men inside like all were a menace that the ocean wanted to rid itself of. The men had one lone small lamp that they fought with to light; Queequeg tied it to one end of his harpoon and held it up throughout the gloomy hours of night in hopes that the Pequod would see it.

Early that morning as the sun began peeking over the horizon, the men could hear the sound of ropes and masts groaning and snapping; the sound grew louder and louder until out of the fog the men saw her, the Pequod was on top of them; she didn’t see them; the men abandoned their ship and watched helplessly as the Pequod sucked the small boat underneath her. The men swam for the ship and were taken up to safety.

Nowadays the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned the mass whale killings however, in the early to mid-1900s the vast whale killing led to their decimation throughout the world's oceans