Moby Dick

The story begins with the narrator Ishmael who is tired of his same old routine of life. Ishmael decides to go out to sea and search for some excitement. Ishmael talks about how he never goes to sea as a passenger or a captain, but a simple sailor. He talks about how honorable he feels being the one helping the passengers, while he is getting paid, and how much better it is to get paid to clean up a little bit out one the sea rather then paying to go out.

When Ishmael sets off to find an adventure he stops to rest at New Bedford at a place called "The Spouter Inn". Ishmael wakes and starts to walk around New Bedford and think about some things he was going to do. As Ishmael is walking around he walks into a chapel where sailors and their wives were mourning of lost sailors in the sea.

The story is told from the point of view of Ishmael, an inexperienced sailor who is the only survivor of the tragedy. Ishamel desribes not only the events aboard the Puquod but also his reactions to the ship, the crew, and the sea. He describes in detail various kinds of whales and gives a great deal of information about the whaling industry. The novel contains an interesting variety of languages: the sailors' colloquial language, which includes nautical and whailing jargon; poetic and philosophic language, as in some of Ahab's speeches; and dialects of various kinds.

When Ishmael gets back to the Spouter Inn, his roommate Queequeg tells him he wants to go with Ishmael. Ishmael and Queequeg then go on a ship to Nantucket, and when they get there they must convince the captains of the voyage to let Quequeg on board. They finally convince the captain ...