| Ishmael | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Ishmael |
|
First Appearance |
Moby-Dick (1851) |
|
Original Publisher |
Harper & Brothers |
|
Created by |
Herman Melville |
Origin[]
Ishmael is a character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), which opens with the line "Call me Ishmael." He is the first-person narrator of much of the book.
Ishmael, like Melville, first worked as a school teacher before securing a position on a merchant vessel. After several voyages in the merchant service, he decides to sail as a green hand on a whaling ship, leaving from Nantucket.
Ishmael first travels from Manhattan Island to New Bedford. The inn is crowded, and he must share a bed with the tattooed Polynesian, Queequeg, a harpooneer whom Ishmael assumes to be a cannibal. Two days later Ishmael and Queequeg head for Nantucket. Ishmael signs up for a voyage on the whaler Pequod, under Captain Ahab. Ahab is obsessed by the white whale, Moby Dick, who on a previous voyage had severed his leg. In his quest for revenge Ahab has lost all sense of responsibility, and when the whale sinks the ship and destroys the whaleboats, all crewmembers drown with the exception of Ishmael: "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee" is un the epigraph. A life buoy fashioned from Queequeg's coffin bobs up to the surface, and Ishmael keeps himself afloat on it until another whaling ship, the Rachel, arrives to rescue him.
Public Domain Appearances[]
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Moby-Dick (1851)
Public Domain Comics Appearances[]
- Feature Presentations Magazine #6