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An analytical paper on the human condition in Moby Dick?
Ok I majored in English Literature but here in Australia, so I'm guessing that an analytical paper means an essay? That's what they had us doing.
An essay has to have an argument. It would have an introduction which states the argument and gives an overview of what you're going to say, and then the body of the essay, in which each paragraph would make one of the points in the argument, fleshes it out, and would include a supporting quote from the book, and the conclusion, which again states your argument and briefly summarises the essay's main points.
I would get your son to read the book and make notes of any point in which the human condition is being discussed or addressed, then come up with an argument. Then decide how many points he's going to make based on the argument, and then write it. I usually write the body of the essay first, and then write the introduction and the conclusion.
If you have a word limit, you allow about 10% for each of the introduction and the conclusion. So if you're aiming for 1500 words, you have 150 words for the introduction and 150 words for the conclusion, which means you have 1200 words left. You could then say that you're going to write 4 points of 300 words each (quotations are included in the word limit, but their references are not).
It's a good idea to get your child to reference their quotations and works consulted correctly too, especially if they're going to university. That one issue alone is a frequent reason university students lose marks on their assignments. http://www.usq.edu.au/library/help/ehelp/ref_guides/default.htm This is the website to the university I studied at's site for referencing guides. As you can see, almost all courses require you to use either the Havard or APA referencing styles. Unless things are different near you, I'd pick one and print out the guide to copy from. Just make sure your child knows that there are more than one style of referencing, and if headed to university they'll have to use the system that their lecturers require.
I'm sorry, I haven't studied Moby Dick as part of my course. I do own it but I haven't read it yet :) I'm getting there hehe. At my university it basically didn't matter what position you took as long as you had a logical argument that was well written and backed up with evidence from the book. Of course, at university, everyone knew the lecturers biases (humanistic, environmentalism, feministic, anti-european etc.) so there was one point of view that most people would write from in their essays!
But OFFICIALLY you are allowed to have any point of view as long as you can 'prove' it from the book.