Why are We Floating in this Abiss? Chp:8-11

     In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick (2000) he illustrates and describes the tale of the famous Essex whale crew of their survival after several months at in the rancorous sea. The author uses scientific jargon to describe the clinical, navigational, and the body changes the crew is suffering because of low portions of food and water; then he provides maps and charts to show the voyage stops and dates and how many of the sailors have they lost on the way; and in conclusion uses telegraphic sentences to be blunt and frank about dangerous situation the crew is going through. Philbrick's purpose is to show the history, the survival, and social traditions the crew kept even in hope and use for their voyage toward safety. Philbrick attracts the audience that seems to enjoy the possibility of hope even in the inevitable, history, and adventure of a whale crew although butchers of whales they are still human that brings sympathy to the heart.

Vocabulary:

1. porpoise: small sociable cetaceans that swim in the Pacific and North Altlantic
2. rutabagas: a type of turnip
3. gunwales: the upper edge of the side or bulwark of a vessel.
4. euthanasia: painless death

Tone: logical, suspenseful, hopeful

Examples:

• Allusion: "Nantucket's Quaker Graveyeard was without worldly monuments of any kind, and many had compared its smooth, unmarred sweep to the anonymous surface of the sea." (pg:154)
• Metaphor: "While a shar is a primitive killing machine, a porpoise is one of the most intelligent mammals on earth." (pg:161)
• Irony: "It was a black night, and the noise that had once signaled the thrill of the hunt now terrified them." (pg:162)
• Telegraphic Sentences: "First they had to butcher the body." (pg:165)
• Evidence: "Sailors commonly accepted that eating human flesh brought a person's moral character down to the level of those 'brutish savages' who voluntarily indulged in cannibalism." (pg:171)

Questions:

1. Why is Pollard always siding to the majority rule?
2. What do you think happen to the whale boat with the last African-American on it?
3. Since women have a much bigger possiblity in surviving starvation, would the men eat them first or the women eat the men?

"This was apparently how Richard Peterson passed away. '[T]he breath  appeared to be leaving his body without the least pain,' Chase reported,'and at four o'clock he was gone.'" (pg:163)