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Thank you We sneak Moby dick the preface and the

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first line Ah la Shmoop We start off with a

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few chapters that aren't actually part of the story Instead

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we get some usher who tells us how to pronounce

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whale in fifty languages and then proceeds to share a

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bunch of quotes from whale books And they actually wrote

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wailed looks Others other than working better than sleeping meds

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what's the point of all of his breakfast stuff Well

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welcome to moby dick This is kind of how the

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whole book is You will find all sorts of weird

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whale information just like in the middle of the story

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So so why does he start that way He's Trying

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to show us that he knows his stuff Basically melville

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is proving to us that he himself is a primary

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source for all that He actually the actual melville not

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author milton historical melville actually grew up sailing and was

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on was on ships a lot and so he actually

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knew what he was talking about He spent a lot

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of time at sea in his twenties and he's basically

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saying okay i've seen this i know about you know

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whale blubber and other things and you can trust me

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and it kind of makes the story a little bit

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more trustworthy Tom what part of it's also just a

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joke Uh moby dick actually something to remember as you're

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reading through it Is that like it's Kind of funny

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on dh one thing he's doing reference beginning is basically

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being joking Being like oh you wanted a really engaging

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story about adventure tale fighting and hunting a whale Well

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let me start with chapters about you wail names and

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the entomology of the tools used teo hard prune them

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exactly on and then of course as is the case

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with almost all literature he's basically introducing us tow the

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themes that were going to come across throughout the book

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and throughout the book we're going to hear a lot

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about whales and if we don't know what the specifics

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are about the whale's going harder for us follow so

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he's kind of helping us out all sounds good but

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deb decipher for us the first line of the book

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What does that mean Where's it lead All right once

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we've gotten through the all that preface stuff we get

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teo call me ishmael and this is one of most

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famous opening lines in all of literature like missy franklin's

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thing for the us one thing um so these three

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words to pack to such a punch that it reminds

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us that as we're reading moby dick we need to

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pay attention to almost everything that's and of course we're

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not gonna read the whole book We're not gonna read

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every word in this in this course but every lining

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something these three words prepares for everything that's to come

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For example Call me ishmael Ishmael is a name from

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the bible and already we get okay Biblical imagery We

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should probably be looking for more of that done that's

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already something that we know we need to keep our

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eye out for ishmael The name means god will hear

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so from the very beginning were having this guy saying

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hey call me the one that god will hear like

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that's a pretty big statement Then we gotta start thinking

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ways this god who is god going to be and

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as we get introduced other characters we say you know

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is god god or is god someone else And then

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of course we have call me ishmael Why doesn't he

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say my name is ishmael Or like i am ishmael

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call me ishmael We kind of start to say like

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are we supposed to trust this guy he's saying call

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me that but but we don't know be bob or

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steve exactly And so that means from the very beginning

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we search take everything with a grain of salt And

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so when people quote call me ishmael is one of

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the most famous lines of literature It's not just because

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it's easy to remember easier than like the opening line

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of pride and prejudice it's because it really holds a

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lot of meaning already from the beginning what's the point

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of the preface What is the first line of the

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book mean Why is the first line famous You know

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call me what you know Comey Shmoop

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