Moby-Dick; or, the Whale by Herman Melville

They encounter the Rachel, another whaler from New Bedford, whose captain, Gardiner, asks Ahab to help search for his son, who was carried off by Moby Dick. Just then, Moby Dick briefly appears before the ship and escapes before the Pequod crew can attack him.Īfter rowing the ship out of the becalmed area, Ahab resumes the hunt. When one of the crew prepares to cut Queequeg's skin for fun, Ishmael rises to his friend's defense, prompting Queequeg to break his death reverie and defend Ishmael.

Casting bones to read his future, Queequeg foresees his death and orders the ship's carpenter to make him a coffin, before he sits down to await his demise. Right afterwards, the Pequod is stuck in slack water for days. Starbuck suggests to his fellow officers Stubb and Flask to wrest command of the Pequod from Ahab, which the two refuse.Īs the Pequod nears the atoll, a man falls from the ship's mast into the sea and disappears. When the captain of a passing ship, who recently lost his hand to the white whale, informs Ahab of Moby Dick's latest whereabouts near the coast of Madagascar, Ahab immediately breaks off a particularly successful hunt, unsettling his crew, particularly his chief mate Starbuck. While the crew reaps a fair bounty of oil on their journey, Ahab's obsession with Moby Dick remains foremost in his mind. Just before their departure, Ishmael and Queequeg encounter a man named Elijah, who delivers an ominous warning about Ahab and that all but one of the crew who follow him will find their deaths on this voyage.Īs the ship casts off, and for some time afterwards, Ahab remains unseen until he finally appears to align his crew to the hunt for Moby Dick and sets course for the Bikini Atoll, where the whale is said to dwell. The next morning, the two of them hire onto a whaling ship named Pequod, which is commanded by grim Captain Ahab, who is obsessed with hunting and killing a legendary white-skinned whale named Moby Dick, who was responsible for severing Ahab's left leg. In the inn where he is staying for the night, he is forced to share his room with a Pacific Islander and harponeer named Queequeg, whom he befriends after a tense first meeting.

In 1841, a sailor named Ishmael wanders to the New England town of New Bedford, Massachusetts, to sign on a whaling ship.

The music score was written by Philip Sainton. The film stars Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart and Leo Genn. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Huston and Ray Bradbury. Moby Dick is a 1956 color film adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick.

Moby-Dick; or, the Whale by Herman Melville