Did you know that Moby Dick is actually Mocha Dick?

If you like reading about marine animals and their adventures, you might have come across American author Herman Melville's magnum opus 'Moby Dick'. But did you know that the novel is believed to have drawn its name from a real-life whale, Mocha Dick? For those of you who haven’t read it yet, it’s a narrative by sailor Ishmael, a fictional character who tells the story of Ahab, the captain of the whaling ship, Pequod. But, what is a whaling ship? And what's the story behind Moby Dick? Read on to know all of it.

The tale behind the tale
Moby Dick is about Captain Ahab's venture to slay a giant white whale that is believed to be based on true occurrences of whaling, the unfortunate practice of killing whales for the commercial use of their body parts, a threat faced by many others in the animal kingdom. The vessel used for catching them is known as whale ship or whaler. Melville's numerous research expeditions acquainted him with the Essex, the whaler owned by Americans from Nantucket in Massachusetts and Mocha Dick, a male whale often spotted near Mocha Island in Chile. Mocha Dick was a large-toothed species from the sperm whale family. Essex, on the other hand, was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in November 2020. These real-life incidents inspired Melville to work on his magnum opus.   

Moreover, Melville was born in 1819 in New York and grew up amid the pinnacle of industrial whaling in America around the 1830s. So, it’s no wonder that he had first-hand experience of whaling after spending time aboard Acushnet, a whaling ship. 

The fictional protagonist of Melville’s novel, Captain Ahab, and his whale ship, the Pequod (Essex equivalent), had their home port on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. In reality, 32-year-old Melville first visited the island in July 1852. On his final day in Nantucket, he ran into the frail 60-year-old captain of Essex, Captain George Pollard Jr. Interesting, isn’t it?

Horror story of a sunken ship
The 20-man crew was compelled to escape in the ship's remaining whaleboats thousands of miles from the coast of South America with little food and water. The survivors eventually turned to eat the dead crew men's bodies after suffering from severe dehydration, starvation, and exposure to the open ocean. When that proved insufficient, they decided by lot who they would kill to save the lives of the others. Thomas Nickerson, a cabin boy and first mate, Owen Chase, later wrote memoirs of the experience.  

A dedication to Nathaniel Hawthorne?
Well, there’s more about how the book came to be written. Legends would have us believe that the novel is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne, another American novelist and short story writer. Interestingly, living just six miles apart in Massachusetts, the two famous authors first crossed paths in 1850. After meeting Hawthorne, who had written The Scarlet Letter, one of his greatest literary works, Melville felt compelled to largely rewrite Moby Dick even though he had finished it by then. Moby Dick's tone and direction were probably altered due to Hawthorne's influence. 

Drawing Inspiration
One theory suggests that the novel drew its inspiration from an 1839 piece by American author Jeremiah Reynolds that appeared in New York's Knickerbocker magazine. Reynolds wrote about a massive white whale infamous for attacking sailing ships and their crews. The whale was frequently spotted in the waters near the Chilean island of Mocha, as aforementioned. Reynolds gave the whale many different descriptions, including "white as wool", "large and strong", and "rugged".