Pequod

Pequod is a fictional whaling ship in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. Named after the Pequot people of New England, the vessel is described as a Nantucket-based, three-masted whaler prepared for a long voyage. The ship is owned by a group of stockholders and commanded by Captain Ahab, who pursues the white whale Moby-Dick with singular obsession.

The crew of the Pequod is a diverse, cosmopolitan mix, including Ishmael, the novel’s narrator, and Queequeg, a skilled harpooner from the South Seas. The officers and sailors—among them Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask—represent a range of backgrounds and cultures, reflecting 19th-century whaling’s global reach. The voyage takes the ship across oceans as it hunts whales and ultimately encounters Moby-Dick.

The central narrative arc follows Ahab’s fixation on the white whale, driving the Pequod on a fateful chase that ends in disaster. The ship is destroyed during the confrontation with Moby-Dick, and most of the crew perish. Ishmael survives, rescued after clinging to a coffin that once belonged to Queequeg and serves as a lifebuoy.

Pequod’s prominence in American literature stems from its role as the setting for Melville’s exploration of obsession, the dangers of monomania, and the commercial whaling era. The ship has become a lasting symbol in literary discussions of maritime fiction and 19th-century industry, and it remains a widely cited model of a fictional vessel with a powerful thematic through-line.