The Final Voyage: The Heart of the Sea Essay

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Sebastian Milo
LIS Rodahan/Fitchman/La Blanc
January 17, 2015

The Final Voyage
The Heart of The Sea Essay

Throughout history there have been many tragedies and stories of survival between man and nature. One historical novel that captivates the idea of true survival and courage is "In The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the whale ship Essex" by Nathaniel Philbrick. In this novel Philbrick uses true historical accounts from diaries of crew members on the Essex to create his story based of true accounts. In this novel a crew of whalers go on a voyage to hunt for some whales and collect oil, blubber, and other essentials to make money for their families. While the crew is on their voyage tragedy strikes and their ship gets hit by a sperm whale. After getting hit that is when the true test of survival begins.
In November of 1820 a crew of whalers led by George Pollard Jr. began a voyage to hunt whales. The crew was sailing in the Essex, an old veteran ship that needed rebuilding but was well known as a profitable boat that had gone on many voyages. The Essex left Nantucket of the 12th of August of
1819. It was heading towards South America because there were very good whaling grounds nearby the South American coast. After gaining a leak in the ship after a couple weeks in voyage, they needed to restock on food and things so they stopped on the Gal á pagos Islands and catch a couple hundred tortoises. This was a significant point in the novel because it showed the crew was not successful because they weren't able to find whales and therefore needed to get something else. Another key point in the novel was after sending whaleboats to capture whales they came up empty many
ESSEX ESSAY

SEBASTIAN MILO

PAGE 1

times and a rising tension between Pollard and Owen Chase arouse, this was the first of many conflicts between the two. It also signified the breaking apart and distrust between the crew members and the desperation and lack of success within their voyage. To add to the desperation and lack of success it didn't get better, a whale struck the ship " the sperm whale has the largest brain... It run into the ship by mistake?" (Pg 86-7) and cause the men to abandon ship and go on the small whale boats and search for safety and provisions, since after being hit almost all provision were lost at sea. " I turned around and saw him directly ahead of us... It appeared with tenfold fury and vengence in his aspect. The surf flew in all directions about him with the continual violence thrashing of his tail. His head about half out the water, and in the that way he came upon us, and again struck the ship"
(Owen Chase) this quote showed how the whale didn't lightly shove the boat, it looked angry and hit it like it wanted to destroy it. This was the start of the search for survival.
Their were two main characters in the novel, Owen Chase and Captain
George Pollard. After the attack the men separated into two main boats, the
Chase boat and the Pollard boat. Each of the boats had other important characters but those two where the main ones. In the Chase boat where
Owen Chase, Isaac Cole, Richard Benjamin, Ben Lawrence and Thomas
Nickerson, the youngest of the crew a 14 year old cabin boy. With provisions running low and out many of the members died due to starvation and dehydration. After Issac Cole died the crew talked about keeping him and decided to and later consumed
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