Moby Dick begins with Ishmael's arrival in New Bedford as he travels toward Nantucket. He rests at the Spouter Inn in New Bedford, where he meets Queequeg, a harpooner from New Zealand who will also sail on the Pequod. Although Queequeg appears dangerous, he and Ishmael must share a bed together and the narrator quickly grows fond of the somewhat uncivilized harpooner. Queequeg is actually the son of a High Chief who left New Zealand because of his desire to learn among Christians. The next day, Ishmael attends a church service and listens to a sermon by Father Mapple, a renowned preacher who delivers a sermon considering Jonah and the whale that concludes that the tale is a lesson to preacher Truth in the face of Falsehood.
On a schooner
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Starbuck tells Ahab that his obsession with Moby Dick is madness, but Ahab claims that all things are masks and there is some unknown reasoning behind that mask that man must strike through. For Ahab, Moby Dick is that mask. Ahab himself seems to recognize his own madness. Starbuck begins to worry that the ship is overmatched by the mad captain and knows that he will see an impious end to …show more content…
Ahab orders his special crew, which Ishmael compares to "phantoms," to their boats. The crew attacks a whale and Queequeg does strike it, but this is insufficient to kill it. Among the "phantoms" in the boat is Fedallah, a sinister Parsee.
After passing the Cape of Good Hope, the Pequod comes across the Goney (Albatross), another ship on its voyage. Ahab asks whether they have seen Moby Dick as the ships pass one another, but Ahab cannot hear his answer. The mere passing of the ships is unorthodox behavior, for ships will generally have a 'gam,' a meeting between two ships. The Pequod does have a gam with the next ship it encounters, the Town-Ho.
Ishmael interrupts his narration to tell a story that was told to him by the crew of the Town-Ho, just as he would tell it to a circle of Spanish friends after his journey on the Pequod. The story concerns the near mutiny on the Town-Ho and its eventual conflict with Moby Dick.
The Pequod does vanquish the next whale that it comes across, as Stubb strikes a whale with his harpoon. However, as the crew of the Pequod attempts to bring the whale into the ship, sharks attack the carcass and Queequeg nearly loses his hand while fending them