Everybody seems to love Moby Dick, so we all want to know what happens to Ishmael next, right? Well, I have it from a pretty good authority that this is what happens next:
Well, after the traumatic events of Moby Dick, Ishmael (whose real name is Irving, but since he doesn’t like being called Irving, he always tries unsuccessfully to come up with new nicknames for himself, only ever getting to be known by them in the stories he narrates) decides that whaling is too hazardous of a career choice; but still loving the sea, he decides to try catching clams instead. It is upon one of these occasions when, with his pants rolled up and with his bare feet in the shallow water, he has his big toe broken by the vice-like grip of an albino lobster’s claw, whereupon said lobster makes its escape. Well, with his toe broken, he is in no condition to give chase; but once recovered, he swears vengeance against the renegade white lobster, and he sets his sights upon finding, catching, boiling and eating it (forgetting momentarily the fate of his former whaling captain: oh, the irony!).
So, needless to say, Ishmael/Irving spends long hours hunting his white lobster, driving away friends and family in the process. He hunts, a man obsessed, catching clams and hoping for the chance to catch that darn lobster that broke his toe. And then one day, as he hauls in clams from a trap or in a net or something, he sees it: the accursed white lobster, in with his catch! So he reaches in to grab the nasty critter, but he is too hasty, blinded by revenge. So once he puts his hand in, the lobster catches his fingers in its vicious claws of death, and breaks them all, only to escape again when our hero drops the cage/net back into the water. Blinded by rage, Ishmael/Irving jumps in the water after the crazy critter, and overcome with anger, he tangles himself up in his fishing nets and drowns. The End.
And so once again we learn: do not become consumed by vengeance nor blinded by rage, for it will only consume you in the end. Or something. Oh, and also we learn that fishing can be dangerous.
