Mar 05 2010

What is Ishmael still doing alive?

Published by at 2:23 pm under Characters and characterization and tagged: ,

“The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth? – Because one did survive the wreck” (509).

Ishmael remains alive at the end of the wreck, presumably the only means through which this text is produced. As everyone else is killed on way or another by Moby Dick, Ishmael is “dropped astern,” where he spends the rest of the battle “floating on the margin of the ensuing scene” but, of course, “in full sight of it” (509). This last picture, Ishmael sort of passively experiencing everything that happens on the ship, is a good manner in which to examine the novel. Ishmael’s rational for whaling is not that of Ahab’s, who finds an even more compelling reason to continue his life’s obsession, or any of the mates, also whaling lifers, or that of the harpooneers; he goes as a “substitute for the pistol and ball” (1). He ruminates on his own melancholic existence while aboard the boat, and it seems like he probably spends a lot of time alone. However, sine this novel is his ‘story,’ he must be privy to situations and conversations in which he does not take part and for which he cannot seem to be in the same place. I get this sense of Ishmael sort of lurking around, a non-offensive type with whom the other men on the ship are unconcerned about him overhearing what they say. However, Ishmael senses a story building beyond the usual whaling enterprise, and a set of complex characters whose fate centers on the decisions of a brutal antagonist. Ishmael seems to have very few direct conversations with any of his superiors, yet his knowledge of them seems based on having spent much personal time with them. He neglects to mention the names of almost anyone else aboard- all we have is Ahab, the mates, the harpooneers, the mysterious Fedallah, Pip, and a random name dropped here and there; this seems odd in such a long narrative in which these other men are constantly present. It is almost as if Ishmael senses who will be the key players in the story, and in the interest of producing a more gripping narrative, he gives the men on the ship a treatment not even close to the minutely descriptive one he gives the whale. As the story progresses, Ishmael is relatively mute on his feelings about chasing Moby Dick, instead locating the Ahab-Starbuck conflict drama play out without trying to influence the reader too much. He wants them to find Moby Dick, for the sake of the story.

I was reading a comment in which someone said they would like to see Johnny Depp as Ishmael in an imagined film version, the only concern being that his dynamism would steal the screen. I agree- Ishmael would need to better be able to disappear into the background, as he does so often in the novel. He certainly spends all of his time thinking, and whether or not he does the research for the more ‘informational’ portions of his narrative on the ship or after reaching shore, we get the sense that he is eternally plotting how this work will look- he certainly is smart enough to know that this chase will end in disaster, and has made himself passive enough to escape the literal need for his death.

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One Response to “What is Ishmael still doing alive?”

  1.   abzornon 05 Mar 2010 at 2:34 pm

    I was also struck by Ishmael’s passivity as a narrator throughout the text. I agree that Ishmael’s position at the end of the novel is very representative of his position throughout. Many conversations are related to us without us being aware of where Ishmael was during the conversation or how he came to overhear it. If it wasn’t for his early close relationship with Queequeg I might question his existence as a real character aboard the ship in any form. I think he is very deliberate about telling this story though. As we discussed in class, this story can be looked at as Ishmael’s attempt to make sense of what he went through. Perhaps the trauma of the experience led to his distance as a narrator.

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