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Moby Dick is a fictional white
sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the Genus (biology), genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the s ...
and the main
antagonist An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the main enemy or rival of the protagonist and is often depicted as a villain.Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works ar ...
's 1851 novel ''
Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler ...
''. Melville based the whale on an albino whale of that period,
Mocha Dick Mocha Dick (; died 1838) was a rogue albino (or possibly leucistic) male sperm whale ('' Physeter macrocephalus'') that lived in the southeastern Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near Mocha Island, off ...
.


Description

Ishmael In the Bible, biblical Book of Genesis, Ishmael (; ; ; ) is the first son of Abraham. His mother was Hagar, the handmaiden of Abraham's wife Sarah. He died at the age of 137. Traditionally, he is seen as the ancestor of the Arabs. Within Isla ...
describes Moby Dick as having two prominent white areas around "a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump", the rest of his body being of stripes and patches between white and gray. The animal's exact dimensions are never given, but the novel claims that the largest sperm whales can reach a length of (larger than any officially recorded sperm whale) and that Moby Dick is possibly the largest sperm whale that ever lived. Ahab tells the crew that the White Whale can be told because he has an unusual spout, a deformed jaw, three punctures in his right fluke and several harpoons embedded in his side from unsuccessful hunts. Yet Ishmael insists that what invested the whale with "natural terror" was that "unexampled, intelligent malignity" which he had shown in his assaults. When he fled before "exalting pursuers", giving every symptom of alarm, he would suddenly turn round and stave their boats to splinters or drive them back to their ship. What seemed the White Whale's "infernal aforethought of ferocity" that every dismembering or death that he caused was not wholly regarded as that of an "unintelligent agent". He bit off Ahab's leg, leaving Ahab to swear "wild vindictiveness" on him. Ishmael, however, is haunted by a "nameless horror" so "mystical and well nigh ineffable" that he could hardly express; it was "the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me". At the end of the novel, Moby Dick destroys the ''Pequod''. Ahab and the crew were drowned, with the exception of Ishmael. The novel does not say whether Moby Dick survives or not.


Real-life models

Although attacks by whales on whalers were not at all common, there were instances, of which Melville was aware. One was the sinking of the
Nantucket Nantucket () is an island in the state of Massachusetts in the United States, about south of the Cape Cod peninsula. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck Island, Tuckernuck and Muskeget Island, Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and Co ...
whaler A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales. Terminology The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Jap ...
''
Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...
'' in 1820, after a large
sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the Genus (biology), genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the s ...
rammed her 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the western coast of South America. First mate Owen Chase, one of eight survivors, recorded the events in his 1821 ''Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex''. The other event was the alleged killing in the late 1830s of the
albino Albinism is the congenital absence of melanin in an animal or plant resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and reddish pink or blue eyes. Individuals with the condition are referred to as albinos. Varied use and interpretation of ...
sperm whale
Mocha Dick Mocha Dick (; died 1838) was a rogue albino (or possibly leucistic) male sperm whale ('' Physeter macrocephalus'') that lived in the southeastern Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near Mocha Island, off ...
, in the waters off the
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...
an island of Mocha. Mocha Dick was rumored to have nineteen harpoons in his back from other whalers, and appeared to attack ships with premeditated ferocity. One of his battles with a whaler served as subject for an article by explorer Jeremiah N. Reynolds in the May 1839 issue of '' The Knickerbocker or New-York Monthly Magazine''.Reynolds, J.N., "Mocha Dick: or the White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal," ''The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine''. 13.5, May 1839, pp. 377–392. Melville was familiar with the article, which described: Mocha Dick had over 100 encounters with whalers in the decades between 1810 and the 1830s. He was described as being gigantic and covered in barnacles. Although he was the most famous, Mocha Dick was not the only white whale in the sea nor the only whale to attack hunters. While an accidental collision with a sperm whale at night accounted for sinking of the ''Union'' in 1807, it was not until August 1851 that the whaler '' Ann Alexander'', while hunting in the Pacific off the Galapagos Islands, became the second vessel since ''Essex'' to be attacked, holed and sunk by a whale. Melville remarked: :Ye Gods! What a commentator is this ''Ann Alexander'' whale. What he has to say is short & pithy & very much to the point. I wonder if my evil art has raised this monster.


Symbolism

Melville presents Moby Dick as a symbol of many things, among them God, nature, fate, evil, the ocean, and the very universe itself. Yet the symbolism of the White Whale is deliberately enigmatic, and its inscrutability is a deliberate challenge to the reader. Ishmael describes the whale's forehead as having wrinkles and scars on it that look like
hieroglyphics Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.I ...
. He muses on the difficulty of understanding what he saw: :If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could not read the simplest peasant's face in its profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale's brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can.Ch. 79. "The Prairie" ''Moby-Dick''


See also

*
List of individual cetaceans Cetaceans are the animals commonly known as whales, dolphins, and porpoises. This list includes individuals from real life or fiction, where fictional individuals are indicated by their source. It is arranged roughly taxonomy (biology), taxonomic ...
* Devil Whale


Notes

{{Moby-Dick Literary characters introduced in 1851 Characters in Moby-Dick Male characters in literature Fictional whales Fictional sea monsters Male literary villains