Moby Dick

Ishmael is the filter through which the reader views almost all the events of Moby Dick and its concurrent insights into whales, whaling, and humanity. At the same time, Ishmael is an inexperienced novice when it comes to whaling, owed only the 300th part of the Pequod’s take. He is not especially good at his job, prone to napping and daydreaming while on watch. Of the facts he recites as an amateur scholar (such as his assertion that the whale is a fish rather than a mammal) only a fraction of them are true. This tale is his to tell only because, like Job, he is “escaped alone to tell thee” through a freak act of good fortune (625).

Ishmael reveals a democratic aspect to Moby Dick, however, illustrating that one person is as worthwhile as any other when it comes to telling a tale, especially one to which they themselves are a party. Certainly, his telling of the events of Moby Dick are far more reliable than would be the crazed Ahab’s, who outranks Ishmael in pay and merit. Nevertheless, Ishmael’s narration is meant to appear unreliable, even to himself. He says he leaves the “capstone” to his grand edifice to future generations.