Ishmael Outcasts

Ishmael is living with haunted memories of his past. His new life without any war zone or hostility, is unfamiliar with him as was always looking over his shoulder during his time in Sierra Leone. This is causing disruption to his life and his identity due to vivid dreams constantly returning to him. “One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life.

When Ishmael had to run away to find safety, he stated, “I walked for two days straight without sleeping. I stopped only at streams to drink water. I felt as if somebody was after me” (Beah 47). Ishmael had to find a way to survive that he is not normally used to. He has to drink any water he can find, and he can never rest because he feels as if somebody will find him and hurt him. He feels this way because the rebels from the war have killed many people just like him all over the continent and right in front of his eyes. Also, Ishmael began to feel alone when he stated, “It was during the attack in the village of Kamator that my friends and I separated. It was the last time I saw Junior, my older brother” (Beah 43). The war has not only made him have a new lifestyle, but it also took away many people that he loved away from him. During the first attack on his own village he lost his family because they all ran in different directions and never found each other again. Ishmael and his older brother, Junior, were able to stick together, but another village was attacked and they lost each other. Now Ishmael was alone and had to fight for himself with no one to guide him. Ishmael was a victim because the war caused many events to occur that affected Ishmael’s

“The world was made for man, but it took him a long, long time to figure that out. For nearly 3 million years he lived as though the world had been made for jellyfish. That is, he lived as though he were just like any other creature, as though he were a lion or a wombat” (Quinn 68). Ishmael went deeper into amplifying this quote by saying it meant to “live at the mercy of the world” and have no control over your environment. He said that this way, a man is not honestly a man.

After some time as as a child soldier Ishmael thought he had finally found his place. He

Ishmael was forced into being in the war because he knew he was going to either die, or join the army against the rebels. Ishmael fits the role of both a victimizer and a victim because he has experienced both like no other.       Throughout the story, Ishmael is portrayed as a victim. He loses family members, loved ones, and friends. He also is targeted to be a boy soldier and do things that he would never have done before.

This is frequently shown in how much Queequeg teaches Ishmael to stray away from traditional Christian teachings, which are inhibiting him from seeing the world as it really is. As a non-Christian, or an “uncivilized” person, Queequeg is able to see the world in a way that he is not blinded by traditional Christian beliefs, whereas Ishmael, a civilized Christian, has been seeing the world through a mask of Christian ideals. As seen through his many biblical references, Ishmael is well versed in Christianity, stating that he was “a good Christian” who was “born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church.” (Melville 45) He even begins to reject Queequeg’s religion, calling him a “wild idolator.” (Melville 45) However, Queequeg is much more accepting of Ishmael’s religion, which eventually causes Ishmaels’ disdain for other’s religions to fade away, to the point where he claims he doesn’t care what religion others are, as long as they don’t insult or kill anyone. (Melville 73) While the importance of religion is shoved aside in Ishmael’s eyes, Melville stages the end of the book to be a large religious metaphor; Queequeg creates Ishmael’s ark. Queequeg, an un-Christian man, therefore uncivilized, saves the life of Ishmael, a Christian man, therefore civilized,

Ishmael is the protagonist of the story. His role is important because he is the one who wrote this memoir. He was raised as a poor kid without an education. He live in Mattru Jong with his brother Junior, father, and stepmother. His mom lives in a different place with his brother Ibrahim. Ishmael loves to spend time with his family. He doesn’t like to be separated from the people he loves the most.

Ishmael talks of the violent events that have not only affected him, but also something he helped create throughout A Long Way Gone. Ishmael's new American life is haunted by his

Remember that Queequeg wishes to learn more about white Christian men, and after unfavorable experiences in both Sag Harbor and Nantucket, he concludes that: “it’s a wicked world in all meridians; I’ll die a pagan” (68). Thus, Queequeg forms a general opinion of white Christian men based off limited experiences. But, Ishmael challenges Queequeg’s conclusion by establishing himself as trustworthy. This is seen through Queequeg’s idol, Yojo. The worshipped figure, has an apparent faith in Ishmael because it messages Queequeg that Ishmael should chose the ship he will sail aboard:

The next motif explored by Brumlik is that of “love tokens” (10). Brumlik explains that the tokens, Guigemar’s knotted shirt and the lady’s belt, “from the very beginning of the last episode…do not function as they should” (11). These objects should be a representation of “public recognition that the couple belong to each other and may marry” (Brumlik 11). Brumlik explains that the knotted shirt has been used by Guigemar “as a protection against marriage while falsely implying a willingness to marry” (12). This is due to Guigemar’s behavior when the lady arrives as Brumlik points out Meriaduc is the one who “command[s] the lady to attempt to untie the knot” and “even when she unties the knot effortlessly Guigemar is still unwilling to believe it is she” (11). The love tokens do not act as a symbol of the two-characters’ love like they should once again showing how Marie undermines the expectation of the lai.

This novel starts off with the narrator finding an ad that stated “teacher seeks pupil, must have an earnest desire to save the world (Quinn, 1.4). The man becomes intrigued by this ad, and replies to the person that posted the ad. The narrator thought that he would be taught how to save the world in a normal classroom, yet when he arrived to the “classroom”, he has seen a gorilla in the cage. This gorilla was named Ishmael, and on the outside of his cage it said “with man gone, will there be hope for gorilla? (Quinn, 1.9)”. In the beginning the narrator was quite upset about the fact that he was going to be taught by a gorilla. Yet,the narrator will learn a lot from Ishmael. The way that they communicate is telepathically. When Ishmael was younger, he got caught, and was put into captivity. He started out living in captivity in a zoo, and ended up being purchased by Walter

While passionate, her marriage had some companionship as together whatever they will experience in the future will be together, "hand clasping hand"

As he weaves a mat on a warp with Queequeg, Ishmael creates a metaphor between the weaving of the mat and the forces behind the concepts of determinism and free will. Immediately afterwards, a sperm whale is sighted nearby and the proceeding description of events serves to further demonstrate the metaphor as it manifests itself in the chapter. The sighting of the whale, the three boats, and Ahab’s special crew are symbols for fate, free will, and chance, respectively.

Melville believes that mankind are the only truly divine beings in the universe and that they must all look to each other, and not God, for comfort and support. Queequeg and Ishmael’s relationship is a significant point in the story because it is such an ironic and strange friendship between and cannibalistic savage that has a good heart, and a philosophical white man like Ishmael looking to find his own truth at sea. Their relationship is so strong that they are inseparable until death and they represent Melville’s first argument of the true nature of man. In the cook’s sermon to the sharks, if the sharks are taken as an analogy of mankind, he is saying humans’ hearts all have a shark nature within them but if one governs that nature, then that person will become an angel like and pure. The cook after being ordered by Stubb to tell the sharks to stop their racket says that he doesn’t “blame [them] so much for;

At the end of the novel Ishmael is no longer the naïve man he once was, as he informs the reader, "a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard"#. The beliefs he possesses at the point of his rescue by "The Rachel" seem reminiscent of transcendentalism, an idea that was prominent in 1836 and one that inspired not only Melville himself but also Henry Thoreau.