This specific journal entry was intriguing to me because of the language Mrs. Wheldon used and the contradictory topics she brought up. She begins by describing the whale as a “monster,” which is juxtaposed with her explanation of extracting the whaler’s resources. To describe the process, she uses the word “carefully” or “careful” multiple times, conveying a respectful tone. She describes how her pre-imagined idea of the process was proven wrong, conveying a sense of curiosity. Describing the whale as a “monster” agrees with the violent actions brought upon the animal, but her ambivalent descriptions contradict the violent actions of the whalers. Later in the journal entry, she writes about this day with “novel enjoyment” then immediately follows that claim with: “While the whale was no doubt created for the purpose for which he has been used, and it may be, and doubles is, right to capture him, yet the procedure seems cruel.” She depicts the act of killing a whale as enjoyment, which at the time was not out of the ordinary because whales brought people riches, but then states that despite whales being made to be killed by humans, the process is cruel.…show more content… In Mrs. Wheldon’s journal, she justifies her inkling that the procedure of killing a whale is cruel by prompting it with the idea that whales were created for human use. With my rewrite, because most of the entry was about the process of killing the whale, I wrote about the whale’s experience being hunted before he was killed. I included that in the whaling process, a small whaleboat was rowed towards the targeted whale(s). Mrs. Wheldon’s journal describes how she waited “all day long” watching the process from the ship, so I assume the whalers would take a while to kill this
