Chapter 1 - Loomings

I’m a poor outcast, and have no interest in being on shore. My soul is damp and weak. My morals keep me from stepping into the street, where I want to knock off people’s hats. When I take to the sea, nothing seems surprising to me. I’m whaling because I dont care if i live or die.

Everywhere you go in the city of the Manhattoes there will always be a way to water. NY’ers lives run waterward. Business people are watergazers.

Walk and look around metro on a weekend afternoon, see a crew of men chilling, daydreaming, leaning - average people used to landlife. Mortal men thinking: Why are they here?

People come from the cities, stop what they are doing to meet up. People w/o experience will swim without knowing the true dangers of water.

You have to choose the path to take, and you’ll be carried to a magic stream. The most absent-minded men will infallibly lead you to water - amazing yet dangerous, and wedded forever to thought.

Life at sea is the most glorious thing a person can experience. An artist can paint a beautiful cottage and shepherd, but needs a stream to draw people to it.

I’m in the habit of going to sea when I grow hazy about the eye, but not a passenger, cook, or captain.

I went from being a schoolmaster to a sailor, knowing I will be ordered to do things against my will. It’s a hard and hurtpride life before the mast, takin’ orders all day but you tough it out.

I’m a slave for life, but we are all cogs in the machine, not just me. We serve a purpose.

But you get paid as a sailor, you pay as passenger. This is the one of the glorious attractions of the sea.

Behind every leader is a group of people who do the work, making the leader look good. I go to sea as a sailor, though, not a captain.

I’m not sure why the stage manager Fate gave me this “shabby part” of the whaling voyage, instead of a jolly cruise. The future comes to me in disguises.

Despite all this, the experience I wanted was the portentous, mysterious monster of the ocean. I love to sail to wild lands, have horror excite me, bring me fear, and then treat it as a friend.

Although the voyage was long and dangerous, the sea and Moby-Dick were calling my name, welcoming and motivating me. So it was decided: the hunt that sparks my wonder and lifts my self-esteem is a go; my taste for adventure drags me to this whale, even to my death.

-opening chapter of Moby-Dick, as re-written by
Westbrook High School American Literature juniors, March 2011