Moby Dick | Summary

Call Me Ishmael
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale chronicles the strange journey of an ordinary seaman named Ishmael who signs on for a whaling voyage in 1840s Massachusetts. A thoughtful but gloomy young man, Ishmael begins his odyssey in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a prosperous whaling town and crossing point to the island of Nantucket. Arriving on a dark Saturday night in December, he finds cheap lodging in a waterfront dive called The Spouter Inn. There he is forced to share a bed with a South Sea islander and “cannibal” named Queequeg, a fierce-looking...

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