Ishmael (Moby-Dick)
| Ishmael | |
|---|---|
| Moby Dick character | |
| Created by | Herman Melville |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Sailor, Oarsman, Merchant |
| Nationality | American |
Ishmael is a fictional character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Ishmael, the only surviving crewmember of the Pequod, is the narrator of the book. As a character he is a few years younger than as a narrator. His importance relies on his role as narrator; as a character, he is only a minor participant in the action. The Biblical name has come to symbolize orphans, exiles, and social outcasts.
Because he was the first person narrator, most of the criticism of Moby-Dick either confused Ishmael with the author himself or overlooked him. From the mid-twentieth century onward, critics distinguished Ishmael from Melville, establishing the character's mystic and speculative consciousness as a central force in contrast to Captain Ahab's monomaniacal force of will.
By contrast with his namesake Ishmael from Genesis, who is banished into the desert, Ishmael is wandering upon the sea. Each Ishmael, however, experiences a miraculous rescue; in the Bible from thirst, here from drowning.
Both Ahab and Ishmael are fascinated by the whale, but whereas Ahab perceives him exclusively as evil, Ishmael keeps an open mind. Ahab has a static world view, blind to new information, but Ishmael's world view is constantly in flux as new insights and realizations occur. "And flux in turn ... is the chief characteristic of Ishmael himself." In the chapter "The Doubloon," Ishmael reports how each spectator sees his own personality reflected in the coin, but does not look at it himself. Only fourteen chapters later, in "The Guilder," does he participate in "what is clearly a recapitulation" of the earlier chapter. The difference is that the surface of the golden sea in "The Guilder" is alive, whereas the surface of the doubloon is unalterably fixed, "only one of several contrasts between Ishmael and Ahab."
Ishmael meditates on a wide range of topics. In addition to explicitly philosophical references, in Chapter 89, for instance, he expounds on the legal concept, Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, which he takes to mean that possession, rather than a moral claim, bestows the right of ownership.
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