26 October 2011, 6:51 pm
tell me what grade you would give me I expect a C out of this... Two Years Before The Mast Inside this Historic novel, Richard Henry Dana puts the readers into his eyes as a common sailor on a two year round trip from Boston to California. Dana was a junior at Harvard when he had to drop out due to the measles half blinding him. Dana thinking that sailing would help cure his eyesight went ahead and enlisted as a sailor on the Pilgrim. His trip was from Boston stopping at South America and Cape Horn then to California trading cow hides with the Mexican Californian’s. Dana started off in Boston not knowing any of the sailors and no experience as a sailor basically starting fresh. He gradually began to learn the ways of the ship and duties which included getting up at any time when “all hands on deck” was called, cleaning the deck, and serving different watches. The Pilgrim traded hides at many different ports like Santa Barbara, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Pedro. In Two Years Before The Mast Dana describes the harsh livings of common sailors especially on the small and cramped Pilgrim. Also because he was of a higher education he was able to have a well-kept diary about his everyday task of being a sailor and he later learned Spanish from the locals and became the ships translator. When he arrived on the coast of California which took about five months he spent many other months going up and down the coast collecting the hides to take back to Boston. During this time period (1830’s) California was the main export of cow hides to the rest of the world. On the way back to Boston from the coast of California he got off the Pilgrim and boarded the Alert having another complicated travel around Cape Horn and returned to Boston with his eyesight fully restored. What makes this historical novel so “historical” is it captures life as a merchant sailor while nobody at that low of a position would have such high of an education that Dana did. Also because Dana had a good education he was able to show people how life was then on ships. While others did not know how to read or write and were unable to write down their accounts as well as Dana could and would not be able to capture what he saw in a few lines as well as he did. In conclusion I thought this was a very good book. I did not like the very beginning but when he came to Cape Horn I really started to pay attention to the book and started enjoying it more. There are no other books of this time period that could ever show the life of a sailor this well. Over all this was a great book and I recommend it to others to read.... Read More »
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