Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession & the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic. But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands each individual responsible for the security of each. Among the crew is Ishmael the novel's narrator ordinary sailor & extraordinary reader. Digressive allusive vulgar transcendent the story Ishmael tells is above all an education: in the practice of whaling in the art of writing.