Honors Literature #2

Hallie Chavis

Honors Lit #2

10/28/09

In the Heart of the Sea

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is a nonfiction novel written by Nathaniel Philbrick and is a National Book Award winner. It tells the story of not only the whaling ship the Essex, but it tells the story of Nantucket, Massachusetts and how whaling came to be. Back in the 19th century, whaling was done in lifeboats by shooting arrow shaped projectiles into the whales that were loaded with explosives. The idea was to shoot them with the arrow and wait for it to explode in the whale so that the whale couldn't escape or fight back. In the Heart of the Sea is a true story about when a whale fought back.

Personally, the most interesting parts of the novel are as follows, Henderson Island and the Essex crewmen on the island, the deaths and cannibalism, and finally, the rescue. Henderson Island is described as a small remote island that is completely uninhabited. The men don't know how to ration the materials and end up using all of the resources on the island, the men decide to leave the island in hopes of finding somewhere else to land. Although most of the crew left, three of the crewmen stayed behind, which seems like nonsense because as described previously, all the food and fresh water had been exhausted. The men were later rescued which is a feat in itself since they survived on the island for over 90+ days after the Essex had sunk.

Cannibalism takes up a huge portion of the story of the Essex. From the 8 people rescued, 7 seamen had been eaten for food by the other sailors. By this time, the men were suffering from tobacco withdrawals, edema and malnutrition amongst many others. They had random outbursts of anger and violence due to the lack of vital needs of their diet and an unhealthy amount of sodium in their systems. 95 days went by with the men on the lifeboats waiting for one another to die, when the Dauphin sailed up to them, they were so mentally unstable at that point they didn't even notice. In the book there was also a sacrifice that took place. One man had to shoot another man on the crew in order to eat him and provide at least a couple days nourishment. The irony is apparent as well, the man who was sacrificed was Owen Coffin, who sadly never got a proper burial.

The rescue was probably the most amazing part of the book. "On the morning of February 23, the crew of the Dauphin made a similar discovery. Looking down from a restless forest of spars and sails, they saw two men in a whaleboat filled with bones." (p. 188) The men were too weak to stand by themselves and were sucking on the dried out bones of their cannibalized crew. It was a traumatizing event, and everyone was shocked to find out that they had even survived 3 months with the conditions they were in. Although, Nantucketers had a quite large delay, the mail they would send would not reach them until a couple, if not a few months after it was written. The locals were oblivious to what had happened. Nonetheless, the rescue of all the lifeboats has made an immensely powerful story and was the inspiration for the great novel, Moby Dick by Herman Melville.