Résumé
Résumé de Moby-Dick
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love ambitious sea stories and characters driven by one overpowering idea. It also suits anyone drawn to questions of obsession, fate and faith, or curious about why people still argue over this book.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Moby-Dick is a novel by Herman Melville, first published in 1851. Melville had worked on whaling ships as a young man, and he poured that experience into a huge book about one voyage out of Nantucket. It follows a ship, the Pequod, and her captain, Ahab, who has sworn to find the white whale that took his leg. The book gives you an adventure at sea, a study of how men hunt and kill whales, and a long argument about what drives a human being.
The story is told by a sailor who asks to be called Ishmael. He is a restless, curious man, and he is as interested in ideas as in action. Between the scenes of the voyage he stops to describe whales, rope, ships, paintings and the color white. Others find it the heart of the book, because it shows a mind trying to understand something too large to grasp.
Over the next few minutes you will meet Ishmael, his friend Queequeg, the stern Captain Ahab and the crew that follows him. You will see how the book is built and what it asks about obsession, fate and faith. We begin where Ishmael begins, on land, with a restless feeling and a decision to go to sea.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Ishmael leaves the land for the seaFree
- 2The Pequod is chosen and warnings are ignored
- 3Ahab appears and binds the crew
- 4A crew of many nations and many minds
- 5Whaling as work, knowledge and wonder
- 6Passing ships and warnings along the way
- 7Obsession and fate drive the story
- 8Meaning, faith and the mask of the whale
- 9A book built like the sea itself
Point clé 1 sur 9
Ishmael leaves the land for the sea
The novel opens with a short sentence that has become its signature, Call me Ishmael. Ishmael tells us he has little money and nothing to hold him on shore. Whenever a gloom settles on him, he says, he goes to sea. He describes crowds of city men standing at the edge of the water, staring out, as if the ocean pulls on everyone.
He travels to New Bedford, Massachusetts, planning to sign on to a whaling ship from Nantucket. It is winter, he is poor, and he must find a bed. He ends up at the Spouter-Inn, a cheap lodging house with a huge, dim painting of a whale on a ship's masts. The landlord tells him the only bed available is one he must share with a harpooner.
That harpooner is Queequeg, a tattooed man from a South Sea island called Kokovoko. Ishmael first fears him, since he arrives late at night and seems to be a savage. Queequeg prays to a small black idol, smokes a tomahawk pipe and keeps his harpoon close. Yet Ishmael quickly decides that a decent man may be found under any skin, and he remarks that it is better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.
The two become close friends, and the friendship sets a tone for the whole book. Queequeg shows generosity, courage and loyalty, and Ishmael learns to see him as an equal. They visit the Whaleman's Chapel, where tablets honor sailors lost at sea. There Father Mapple preaches a sermon on the prophet Jonah, who tried to run from God and was swallowed by a great fish. The sermon is about obedience, and it hangs over the voyage that follows.
These early chapters are warm, funny and full of ordinary life. They also plant the book's main questions. What do we owe to strangers, and what do we owe to God or fate? Ishmael decides to ship out with Queequeg, and the two cross to Nantucket to find a vessel. The reader sees that Ishmael is the kind of narrator who weighs everything, and that he will watch the ship's captain with a mix of awe and dread.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Ishmael
- A restless sailor and former schoolteacher, Ishmael narrates the voyage and becomes the harpooner Queequeg's close friend.
- Captain Ahab
- The Pequod's scarred captain commands Ishmael and his shipmates, driven by vengeance against the whale that took his leg.
- Queequeg
- A tattooed harpooner from the South Seas, Queequeg becomes Ishmael's closest friend and joins him aboard the Pequod.
- Starbuck
- The Pequod's devout Quaker first mate favors honest whaling work and questions Captain Ahab's pursuit of vengeance.
- Stubb
- The cheerful, pipe-smoking second mate serves under Ahab and treats the crew's dangerous work with casual humor.
- Flask
- The Pequod's short, stubborn third mate serves alongside Starbuck and Stubb, treating whale hunting as a straightforward contest.
- Fedallah
- A mysterious Parsee serving Captain Ahab, Fedallah leads the captain's private boat crew and troubles the other sailors.
- Pip
- A young Black cabin boy and tambourine player, Pip belongs to the Pequod's diverse crew under Captain Ahab.
- Moby Dick
- The powerful white whale that took Ahab's leg, Moby Dick is the object of the captain's consuming vengeance.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 219,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 14 h 40 min
- Listening time24 h 25 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback and hardcover at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages