In the Heart of the Sea: Ch. 1-4

Precise

                In Nathaniel Phillbrick’s non-fiction narrative In the Heart of the Sea- The Tragedy of the Whale ship Essex (2001), Phillbrick illustrates the tragedy of the whale ship Essex and man’s struggle against nature. He introduces his nonfiction piece with a description of Nantucket: the inhabitants, the economy, and their religious accustoms. He uses imagery, allusions, similes, and metaphors to describe the location. He foreshadows a tragedy, by providing an allusion to a comet that meant that something unusual is going to happen, before the voyage began.  Essex set out from her home of Nantucket in August of 1819, planning to be away for two years or more, only to return with a full cargo of oil from sperm whales. Phillbrick narrates the voyage by including quotes from the ship mates, especially from the youngest boy; Thomas Nickerson. He describes the voyage with vivid images to engage the reader into feeling like he or she is in the whale ship. Suspense is created when Essex suffers a violent storm attack in the Atlantic and is nearly knocked down, and how the ship mates had to make a decision to keep going or to go back to Nantucket. Phillbrick’s purpose is to tell the tragedy of the whale ship, Essex and describe the people, conflicts, diseases and decisions throughout the mission of whale hunting. This nonfiction bestseller seems to be intended for those who are interested in American historical tragedies, decisive sea adventures, and interested in whales.

Vocabulary

• Promontory (n): a prominent mass of land which overlooks lower lying land or a body of water (peninsula)
• Sphinxlike (adj.): difficult to understand or find out about
• Nadir (n): the lowest point of anything
• Regurgitate (v): to pour or rush back
• Hobble (v): a device that prevents or limits the locomotion of a human or an animal, by tethering one or more legs

Tone: informative, reflective, objective

Rhetorical Strategies

Simile: “…whaling became easier for the green hands to take as they grew to appreciate that each was just part of a process, like mining for gold or growing crops...” (pg.65) and “The ship rode over them as buoyantly as a seagull” (pg.63) and “…quivering like a piano wire down the centerline of the boat” (pg. 53)

Metaphor: “The darkness was licked up by the fierce flams” (pg.57).

Allusion: “The first day of a whaling voyage included yet another ritual- the captain’s speech to the crew. The tradition was said to date back to when Noah first closed the doors of the ark, and was the way the captain officially introduced himself” (pg. 34).

Imagery: “Then he’d take up the eleven- to twelve-foot-long killing lance, its finding “the life” of a giant swimming mammal encased in a thick stab it as many as fifteen times, probing for a group of coiled arteries in rounded the whaleboat in a rushing river of bright red blood” (pg. 54).

Foreshadow: “The comet (which appears every clear night) is thought to be very large from its uncommonly long tail,” he wrote, “which extends upward in opposition to the sun in an almost perpendicular direction and heaves off the eastward and nearly points for the North Star.” From earliest times, the appearance of a comet was interpreted as a sign that something unusual was about to happen.” (pg. 3-4).

Analogy**: “Instead of seeing their prey as a fifty-ton creature whose brain was close to six times the size of their own (and, what perhaps should have been even more impressive in the all-male world of fishery, whose penis was as long as they were tall” (pg. 65).

Discussion Questions

1.        What is Nathaniel Philbrick’s purpose in including the whispered words of a Nantucket mate on page 51?
2.        Why is Captain Pollard so furious when the kid was “stealing” beef without permission?
3.        If killing whales is so dangerous and has little pay, why do people still risk their lives doing it?

Memorable Quote

“Nantucket Girl’s Song” J

Then I’ll haste to wed a sailor, and send him off to sea,

For a life of independence, is the pleasant life fr me.

But every now and then I shall like to see his face,

For it always seems to me to beam with manly grace,

With his brow so nobly open, and his dark and kindly eyes,

Oh my heart beats fondly towards him whenever he is nigh,

But when he says “Goodbye my love, I’m off across the sea”

First I cry for departure, then laugh because I’m free.