In The Heart of The Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick, a story depicting a whaling ship from Nantucket Island, Massachusetts that was stuck down by a gigantic sperm whale. Most people in America are not aware that this tragedy had ever even occurred. Although, this was one of the most horrendous events ever in American history. Philbrick's entire purpose for this novel was to expose America to the frightening story that sparked one of the most well-known adult classics, Herman Melville's, Moby Dick. The story, while in most part it was dry and to say the least, boring, when the dramatic events occurred, it left chills going down my spine. The whaleship Essex, truly was a tragedy and Philbrick did an extraordinary job of depicting the horrors that the ship endured.
The story takes place in Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, at the time the whaling capital of the world. The island's population consisted of mainly Quakers who believed that God granted them dominion over the fish of the sea. Nantucket was a community where seamen were set on a high pedestal, women mainly only wanted to marry men who have killed a whale. .
In November of 1820, the small whaling boat, the Essex set sail on the Pacific with its crew of 20 men. The men had no idea that 15 months later they would find themselves drifting in the immeasurable Pacific, doomed to a fatal destiny. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was sunk by an acrimonious whale. In the few minutes it took for the whale to destroy their ship, the sea-fearing hunters became frightened prey. The crew drifted for ninety days in three diminutive whale boats, submitting to horrendous weather, hunger, disease and in the fullness of time turning to drastic measures to fight for survival. The crew, fearing cannibals in the west, on the Pacific Islands, the decided to sail back east, toward South America. They sailed for approximately a month before they were able to catch sight of land, but Henderson Island turned out to be a dubious freshwater source and the men soon consumed most of the birds and shellfish located there.
