In The Heart Of The Sea |Book Analysis

In The Heart Of The Sea Book AnalysisIn the early nineteenth century it was very common for communities to rely upon specialized products as a source of in get under ones skin. This book, In the Heart of the Sea The tragedy of the Whale send out Essex, is a boloney of a break down stray that was attacked by a giant sloven sperm heavyweight in the heart, or middle of the Pacific sea while on a voyage to acquire whale oil, Nantuckets thrill commodity. The author, Nathanial Philbrick, describes the effects that this tragedy had on the city of Nantucket, the hardships that came along with cosmos a sailor in the whaling industry, and the gruesome battle for survival that it placed upon the conspiracy of the Essex.The early 1800s was a great and prosperous time for Nantucket. This familiarity was super functional in the occurrence that it had a flourishing economy, little to no crime due to the harmony of the people and dominant Quaker religion, and thoroughly played roles o f both men and women. As mentioned before, Nantucket heavily relied on whale oil as a source of revenue. At this time the harm of whale oil was rapidly rising, thus stimulating their economy. Though it seems as if this town had it made, the act of obtaining whale oil was quite dangerous and much deadly. It was typical for men to be gone for years at a time bulge out at sea and for women to lose their husbands and other priapic loved ones to the risky whaling business. Women as well had a very all-important(a) role in keeping the town go pastning smoothly. In rundown to having to attend to normal everyday tasks of taking care of the children and household duties, they had to run a studyity of the islands businesses. The women struggled with these tasks and because of the loneliness brought on by the absence of their spouses legion(predicate) began to fall in to the addictive traps of opium. It was tough to say the least further this was all necessary for the existence of th is town.The Essex was a whaling ship used by the town of Nantucket in the nineteenth century. It, along with two companion ships, dress up sail in August 1819 from Nantucket Island in search of the one amour that was vital to the community, whales. Within the first few days of being out at sea the Essex experienced a great storm that fair about killed everyone on board. Not only was the ship roughly flipped everywhere scarce the sails that they used to guide the ship across the ocean were torn. One of their threesome ships was swept out to see, leaving them with only two. Having no other plectrum the junto made stops along the coast of atomic number 16 the States to restock the ship with different supplies and equipment necessary for the voyage. After embarking once once more the crew eventually came upon two whales, which they killed. This was about half of the sum that the crew had set out to capture before returning back to Nantucket. nigh mid-November 1820, nearly f ifteen months by and by they had firstly set sail, the crew came upon a group of whales needed to complete their journey. While trying to kill the whales, a giant sperm whale severely damaged the side of the ship making it unable to be fixed. It was at this point in which their incubus started to begin. They were forced to abandon the Essex and take shelter on a nigh island. The crew brought a majority of their supplies with them because they feared that the rumors they had heard might in fact be true. It was said that there were cannibals on a close island towards the west. Capitan canvas along with the other men decided to sail back to South America on their one and only ship. It ended up being over a month until they reached any land. Eventually they ended up at Henderson Island where they discovered that there was not a plentiful amount of anything, including fresh drinking water. Pollard decided to get back on the ship leaving three men behind who we hoping that they would eventually come back to help them. It wasnt long before the crew on the ship started to become starved and dehydrated. After months of malnourishment they started dying glum just one after another. At first they would throw their bodies overboard and disguise them at sea but it came to a point in which they began to run extremely low on supplies. What the ironic part is about this story is that the men were faced with the tough choice of becoming cannibals and feasting off of their old crew members deceased body, giving them some hope for survival, or hoping for the best and reaching land soon. It is ironic in the sense that they were staggeringly frightened by the tales that there were cannibals in close proximity to them, which is wherefore they ended up not staying, but cannibalism actually ended up saving some of their lives. Only a few crew members from the original twenty survived, they included Thomas Nickerson, Owen Chase, Charles Ramsdell, Benjamin Lawrence, and Capital George Pollard.The tragedy of the Essex go out greatly affect the community of Nantucket because they rely so heavily upon the whale oil for survival. When the Essex sank so did the whale oil, leaving the town with nothing recovered from that journey. Not only does it affect them economically it affects them socially as well. some(prenominal) men lost their lives during this expedition, leaving numerous wives without husbands and children without fathers. As for the sailors who actually survived the grating time out at sea it was hard on them after their return. Gossip went around the town talking about how the men became cannibals. The community was respectful towards the sailors though, they kept quiet about the topic for the most part. But, town continued to whisper about the Essex well into the twentieth century, it was not a topic a Nantucketer openly discussed (Philbrick 217). The disaster made it extremely unenviable to survive in this community, and eventually led to the collapse of it. This led to the travel down of the whaling industry in Nantucket. The industry moved to other various locations along the New England coast, usually with deeper ports than that of Nantucket. Shortly after this a major catastrophe happened to the town of Nantucket. Fire raged across the town leaving numerous home little, jobless, and with nothing. Philbrick describes the event saying more than a third of the town and almost all the commercial district was charred wasteland (222). After this accident many another(prenominal) people took off to the west to California to start a refreshing and having hopes of finding gold, leaving the town nearly empty.You would think that an event as serious that this would have a big negative effect on the nation no matter how small the incident, but it didnt at all. By looking at the time period in which this took place, other issues that were a touch of America, and the sheer size of the nation you can tell wherefore it had such a minor effect on the country and authoritative almost no attention or interest. Whaling was not a concern of the entire nation because it only benefitted a certain region. Also, we were getting over wars that had been going on for awhile.When looking back at the series of events that took place over this entire story you can start to see where crucial errors in decision making in which determined the fate of the voyage. As I had mentioned earlier the Essex went through a major storm that bust up the sails and made the ship nearly inoperable. Capitan Pollard, with his years of experience in commanding ships, suggested that the crew turn the ships around and head back for repairs so that they could travel more safely down the road ahead. Two of his less experienced mates disputed that there were extra ships available at a close port, and that they should just keep moving along so that they would not waste time. Philbrick writes that, Pollards behavior, after both the knockdo wn and the whale attack, indicated that he lacked the resolve to overrule his two younger and less experienced officers (101).