Which heart ending

After what was surely the most trying ordeal of their lives, the surviving crew of the Essex have returned home to America. Rah rah rah!

Additional shouts of joy! Despite having seemingly groovy lives, the survivors will always bear scars from their ordeal. For example, although Chase has a stellar career as a captain, "his personal life [ Then there's Pollard, who quits whaling to become Nantucket's night watchman.

He loves his job, but his scars are plain to see, too: "once a year [ Though the younger survivors have an easier time readjusting, they too carry gnawing memories of the ordeal up until their deaths. The disaster haunts the whaling industry as well: suddenly, "an increasing number of sperm whales were fighting back," and in less than thirty years, Nantucket becomes a veritable ghost town Although the Essex tragedy might not have directly led to Nantucket's downfall, it's hard not to see the shadow of that fateful day hanging over the tiny island town.

Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. The beginning which is really the ending is a continuation of this linear narrative, but perhaps it's a more immediate continuation than we might have thought. Look how it seems to start in the middle of a previous conversation with someone:. Maybe this is what the narrator tells the police after he shows them the body. Maybe this is part of the interrogation process, which is followed by the story of the murder.

Or, maybe much more time passes before the narrator tells the tale. Suppose he was sentenced to do his time in a psychiatric facility. He's been in a number of years, and it's possible he'll be released, if he can prove his sanity. So he tells the story to demonstrate that he's ready to face the outside word. Needless to say, the story would have the opposite of the intended effect in this situation. Some interesting things also occur in the literal ending of the story, by which we mean these lines:.

I admit the deed! Dissemblers and dissimulators both act one way in order to conceal true feelings, or intentions. If you recall, the narrator cites his ability to act sweetly to the old man while inwardly desiring to kill him as proof of his sanity. Now he suspects the police of doing the same thing — acting like they don't suspect him, even though they do.

The narrator might well be correct in this, though what likely made the police suspect him was not that they could hear what hears, but his own actions, specifically, this:. I foamed — I raved — I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards.