In the Heart of the Sea: Chp 1-4

     In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick he describes the hardships of the crew upon the Essex but also the expectations, rules, history, and social status that the little island Nantucket placed upon these men on the hunting of sperm whales. He narrates the journey of the whaleship the Essex in using the point of view of a young cabin boy Thomas Nickerson and his viewing accounts upon the whaleship. Philbrick describes the religious, social, and also the language views of the little island Nantucket; he also documents and narrates the voyage of the crew on the Essex from the departure from Nantucket to the burning of one of  the Galapajos Islands. His purpose is to tell the lost historic event that not all American people seem to know or realize the the sinking of a whaleship trully did happen, but also to reveal how and why the Nantucket society had prosper on the hunting of the giant mammal, their survive skills in the 19th century, and the environmental impact they have placed on the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. This book seems to targets readers that are fasinated by historical events and the travel adventures of a ship crew, and those who are concern how the whaling industry in the New England island colony almost brought the total death of the gental mammal in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Vocabulary:

• inexorable: unyielding; not being able to control or dominate
• surrogate: a substitute for another thing, person, place
• captaincies: the office or rank of a captain

Tone: suspenseful, informative, dark

Rhetorical Strategies:

• analogy: "Even the most repugnant aspects of 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, designed to make them money." (pg:65)
• allusion: "Just as the skinned corpses of buffaloes would soon dot the prairies of the American West, so did the headless gray remains of sperm whales litter the Pacific Ocean in the early nineteenth century." (pg:65)
• imagery: "The hot July sun beat down on her old, oil-soaked timbers until the temperature below was infernal, but Nickerson explored every cranny, from the brick altar of the tryworkds being assembled on deck to the lightless depths of the empty hold." (pg:1)
• diction: "Compounding the confusion was the Nantucketers' accent. It wasn't just 'ile' for 'oil'; there was a host of peculiar pronunciations, many of which varied markedly from what was found even as nearby as Cape Cod and the island of Martha's Vineyard. A Nantucket whaleman kept his clothing a 'chist.' His harpoons were kept 'shurp,' especially when 'atteking' a 'lirge' whale." (pg:22)
• evidence: "' I soon commenced hunting for a voyage, but it was dull times with commerce as seamen's wages were but ten dollars per month, and there wer more sailors than ships in port, and I found it dull times for green hands.'" (pg:25)

Questions:

• What is "short sail"?
• Why does Philbrick use excerpts from the crews' diaries?
• Why do crew members suffer more than regular jobs like being a farmer?

Quote:
     "Each whale, each cask of oil, brought the Nantucketer closer to returning home to his loved ones. And it was when they were trying out the whale that the whalemen typically grew the most nostalgic for home."