Moby Dick: A Podcast Script

TL;DR: A script about Herman Melville’s Moby Dick for a podcast episode produced by The Improving Co., in an ongoing series about famous literary works in the English language.

Target Audience: Advanced English-language learners at bilingual junior high and high schools in Spain; English coordinators and teachers.

Tone: informative, playful, humorous, casual.

Intention: Encourage students to read the books.

In today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. It never ceases to amaze me how certain books become timeless classics, read by generation after generation. What is it about a literary work that continues to provide audiences with entertainment and meaning more than a hundred years after its publication?

We touched on it in others episodes, but a story transcends the age in which it was written by exploring universal, timeless truths about the human condition. So what could possibly be true in a world without computers, social media, or even electricity, that still resonates with us today? 

What’s more, Moby Dick only really gained fame more than 20 years after the author’s death, and almost 7 decades after it was published. How is it that a book nobody cared about at the time of its publication becomes required reading at every high school in the country? 

What’s amazing is that if I summarize the plot of Moby Dick for you, it will just sound like a simple fun adventure story. Ready? Here we go: a group of men set out to hunt some giant white whale, a cachalot named, wait for it, Moby Dick.

That’s it! That’s the story. And it’s almost 700 pages long. Does an author really need to spend that much time talking about a whale hunt? 

Well, surprise, surprise, the simple plot dives into much more than just hunting whales, but we’ll get to that because Melville certainly spends a lot of time teaching us about whales, boats, ropes, and harpoons! 

Whaling, as in murdering whales, was a lucrative industry: people needed the whale’s oil to light their lamps and lanterns, among many other things. 

And guess where they got this oil from? The whale’s FAT (known as blubber)! Imagine that; using fat to fuel the light in your room. Imagine saying to your mother, “Hey mom! It’s dark in here. Do we have any whale fat?”

But they didn’t only want the whale’s oily blubber; they also used some foul substance found in a sick whale’s intestines for PERFUME! It’s called ambergris. To quote Melville:

“Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale!”

How can something so disgusting possibly be used for perfume? I guess you’d have to study chemistry to understand it, but it’s possible. Ambergris: a thick grey and black substance created in the intestines of a sperm whale suffering from indigestion. 

Here’s another scenario for you: “Hmm, I’m going out to a party today, I want to smell good, and need my perfume, I guess I better go get sperm whale intestinal fluids.” Just a thought. 

Anyways, in Melville’s time, people all over the western world lit their lanterns with whale fat and made themselves smell good from what they took out of its intestines. Naturally, that meant killing whales could make you a lot of money. 

In the book, we begin with a character named Ishmael, who’s struggling to figure out what to do with his life and feeling kind of depressed. So what does he do? He goes on a whaling expedition to get some direction and find meaning.

What a way to go about doing that! I actually can’t think of many things much scarier than floating around in the middle of the ocean trying to hunt some humongous whale that could literally smash your vessel into pieces. Seems to me like overkill—pun intended!

And, uh, sperm whales, while not as big as blue whales, they are big enough to be scary, especially because they don’t eat tiny plankton: they eat giant squid. In other words, meat. Lots and lots of meat. 

Don’t worry, sperm whales don’t attack people or their boats. Just don’t attack them! Whale hunting is illegal in most countries now anyway, and rightfully so. In fact, whales in general are wonderfully brilliant creatures that play a key role in keeping marine ecosystems healthy and in preventing the climate from heating…so in a way, using these creatures for our lights and perfume wasn’t only cruel, it was self-destructive. But that’s for another podcast.

Where were we? Ishmael’s whaling adventure, the vessel through which Melville explores the deeper more universal themes about the human condition.

Not only does he talk about the destructive exploitation of nature, he reveals the dangers of unchecked ambition; the problems with racism, inequality, even religious intolerance; and the limits of knowledge. Not bad for a story about a depressed, young man’s journey to find himself by going whale hunting.

So when put into context, it’s easy to understand why the book was problematic for the age in which it was written. Melville was clearly ahead of the times. Think about the world he lived in: slavery, racism, and animal cruelty were normal, everyday practices, while homosexuality and practicing a non-Christian religion were taboo. Melville’s book questions all that. He challenges what people considered normal and acceptable while humanizing what was considered strange and taboo.

Some readers see the book as a cautionary tale to America and humanity in general about blindly following corrupt leaders.  And that brings us to Captain Ahab.

Now, Captain Ahab has got everything that makes a character legendary. He’s has a scar on his face and a whalebone for a leg. And he’s angry at the world. He’s angry with God and nature and even existence itself, so he projects his anger toward the great white whale as if it were the ultimate manifestation of evil. He’s got a vendetta against Moby Dick for biting off his leg in the past. 

I guess Captain Ahab never considered that getting angry at a whale for hurting you doesn’t make sense, especially if you were trying to kill it!  

But what’s important here is that Captain Ahab, while dangerous, knows what he wants, he has direction, even if it’s not a good one, and he is ready to die to fulfill his mission. He’s so committed to his goal he’s able to persuade his entire crew to stay with him on his quest, even if it’s clearly headed toward destruction. 

Remember I mentioned that Ishmael was depressed and didn’t know what to do with his life? Well, his existential crisis is taken over by his captain’s ambition. I interpret that as the danger of not knowing where you’re going or what you want: you become vulnerable to getting sucked into someone else’s dark plans. 

Remember that the America of Melville’s time was a very young country, a collection of colonies that didn’t even know what it was, existing in a state of uncertainty. It’s as though Moby Dick is saying, “Beware of unchecked ambitions, and be careful with who you choose as your leader! They can steer your ship down the wrong path.” Like the metaphor?

The Pequod ship of Moby Dick and especially the narrator himself, like the young nation in which the story takes place, are entities in transition exploring themselves. They must deal with life’s difficult questions: how do we live our lives and how do we find meaning? Who should we elect to lead us? 

And it’s these questions that are explored through a fascinating story told with excellent writing, making a once unsuccessful novel, a timeless literary masterpiece. 

SEE WEBSITES WHERE PODCAST WAS PUBLISHED:

https://www.themagazine.live/login.php
http://www.planetfraternity.com/ 
http://oiecinternational.com/planet-oiec/