moby dick

Moby Dick is an exciting sea novel about a captain who sails the high seas in search of a giant whale. The whale had bitten off his leg long before, so he wanted to get even. Author Herman Melville may well have been inspired.
Mid-way through the novel, Capt. Ahab, our egotistical hero, walks on the plank at night and asks the universe "whether t‚ˆis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them?" Ahab hopes to slay a supernatural whale by the application of modern weapons, such as the lance, spear, harpoon, and similar artillery. However, his faithful first mate, Starbuck, a devout, church-going man, recognizes the danger, for he knows well that Moby Dick is no ordinary whale but a force of evil. During a crossing of the Line of Capricorn, a vision appears on the mast in the form of St. Elmo's fire, an electrical phenomenon conjured up in olden times by the monks of the Order of...