The Philosophy Discussion Forum

RickLewis wrote: ↑Wed Mar 18, 2026 1:00 pm Call me Ishmael?

Despite recently reading Moby Dick for the very first time, I still don't get why the narrator is called Ishmael. Why is that?

By the way, not a lot of people notice that Ahab is Baha! spelled backwards.

The prose counterpart to Milton's Paradise Lost is Moby Dick, the ultimate epic prose poem. What's normally classified as one of the five or six greatest novels in world literature is not of a kind one gradually picks up to read for nothing more than entertainment or chicken soup for the soul enlightenment. It's metaphors and symbolism expressed in both biblical and Shakespearean cadences make it nearly impossible for many to understand or appreciate without notes. The way it ends is itself of a depth which almost no novel ever managed to surpass. It's essential one reads a story of this sort without preconceptions. Like a late Beethoven string quartet, don't start analyzing it before you heard (read) it at least twice.

Why is the narrator in Moby Dick called Ishmael?

The name Ishmael is one of the most intentional and symbolic choices in Western literature. By opening the novel with the famous line, "Call me Ishmael," Herman Melville immediately signals to the reader that the narrator is assuming a specific identity rooted in ancient tradition.

Here is why that name is so significant:

1. The Biblical Archetype of the Outcast
In the Book of Genesis, Ishmael was the first son of Abraham, born to the handmaid Hagar. When Abraham’s wife Sarah gave birth to Isaac, Ishmael and Hagar were cast out into the desert.
• The Wanderer: In the Bible, Ishmael is described as a "wild man" whose "hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him."
• The Alienated Soul: Melville’s Ishmael adopts this name because he feels like a social and spiritual orphan. He turns to the sea when he feels "grim about the mouth" and has a "damp, drizzly November" in his soul, seeking a place where he can be an outsider among outsiders.

2. The Ambiguity of Identity
The phrasing "Call me Ishmael" is crucial. It suggests that Ishmael may not be the narrator’s birth name, but rather a pseudonym or a role he is playing.
• It establishes him as a universal figure rather than a specific individual.
• By casting himself as the biblical outcast from the first sentence, he prepares the reader for a journey that takes place on the margins of society and human understanding.

3. The "Lone Survivor" Motif
The biblical Ishmael survived the desert against all odds through divine intervention. In Moby-Dick, this mirrors the narrator's fate:
• The Messenger: At the end of the novel, Ishmael is the only crew member of the Pequod to survive the encounter with the White Whale.
• The Job Connection: Melville frequently references the Book of Job, where messengers arrive one after another to report disasters, each saying, "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee." As the "Ishmael" of the story, he is the designated survivor whose purpose is to bear witness to the catastrophe.

The name sets the tone for the entire book: it is a story told by a man who belongs nowhere, yet sees everything.

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 5:23 am

RickLewis wrote: ↑Wed Mar 18, 2026 1:00 pm Call me Ishmael?

Despite recently reading Moby Dick for the very first time, I still don't get why the narrator is called Ishmael. Why is that?

By the way, not a lot of people notice that Ahab is Baha! spelled backwards.

The prose counterpart to Milton's Paradise Lost is Moby Dick, the ultimate epic prose poem. What's normally classified as one of the five or six greatest novels in world literature is not of a kind one gradually picks up to read for nothing more than entertainment or chicken soup for the soul enlightenment. It's metaphors and symbolism expressed in both biblical and Shakespearean cadences make it nearly impossible for many to understand or appreciate without notes. The way it ends is itself of a depth which almost no novel ever managed to surpass. It's essential one reads a story of this sort without preconceptions. Like a late Beethoven string quartet, don't start analyzing it before you heard (read) it at least twice.

I've got to say, this looks very much like something cut-and-pasted from somebody else, somewhere else...some website, perhaps? It sounds like a summary written by somebody's press agent...all glowing, nothing wrong. And I love the vague insults to those who fail to appreciate Moby in the way the original writer does. That's always a nice touch that betrays insecurity about one's own position: resorting to shaming your critics in advance, so they won't even try.

Now, I've got no problem with the suggestion that Moby Dick is a great story...at least the parts that are narratively coherent. But on the level of "Paradise Lost"? Surely not...not in historical-literary impact, and more importantly, not in structure.

Were every second chapter put together so the narrative was continuous and coherent, I think it might be even a better book: a real whale of a tale, so to speak. But the ventures into cetology and whaling that are interspersed so heavily throughout just make the whole thing "hard sailing" -- and for no good reason. For instance, it's simply not necessary for us to know that the whaleman's coat is made out of a whale's John Thomas (Chapter 95), for us to understand who Ahab is, or why he hates the whale. So structurally, the constant interruptions are part of the frustration of reading...unless you're really into whale bits.

By reasonable comparison, Heart of Darkness is shorter, and better for the brevity. Moby Dick is overwritten, I think: still great, but not perfect.

I've noticed, coming as I do from the North American continent, that people here tend to value their literature according to its rank among THEIR OWN literature. They don't really use the index of a country like England, Germany or France, in which the literary traditions are longer and thus richer. Moby Dick might therefore be a great AMERICAN novel...and there are a few great American novels, to be sure. And it might be a good novel among all Western novels.

But does it deserve ranking with "Paradise Lost"? Shakespeare? Those are the comparisons the "press agent" writer wants us to make. I think he's asking too much.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 4:25 pm
I've got to say, this looks very much like something cut-and-pasted from somebody else, somewhere else...some website, perhaps? It sounds like a summary written by somebody's press agent...all glowing, nothing wrong. And I love the vague insults to those who fail to appreciate Moby in the way the original writer does. That's always a nice touch that betrays insecurity about one's own position: resorting to shaming your critics in advance, so they won't even try.

I responded to Rick as to what Call me Ishmael could mean as the very first sentence in the novel which counters yours...therefore you had to reply!

Actually the quote comes from Gemini expressed as a verdict external to my opinion. Moby Dick is denoted as one of the great masterpieces of world literature. This is true whether you like it or not. Your opinion is your own. You may repudiate that appraisal, it nevertheless remains a fact. Nothing more need be said. It is your right to pick and choose based upon whatever prejudice you wish to apply

For the individual, whether in music, literature or whatever, it's all highly subjective including every religious belief one voluntarily succumbs to. Ultimately, regardless of one's opinion, it's a consensus which has always decided. With Moby Dick the verdict has long been finalized.

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:40 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 4:25 pm
I've got to say, this looks very much like something cut-and-pasted from somebody else, somewhere else...some website, perhaps? It sounds like a summary written by somebody's press agent...all glowing, nothing wrong. And I love the vague insults to those who fail to appreciate Moby in the way the original writer does. That's always a nice touch that betrays insecurity about one's own position: resorting to shaming your critics in advance, so they won't even try.

I responded to Rick as to what Call me Ishmael could mean as the very first sentence in the novel which counters yours...therefore you had to reply!

No, I wanted to reply because I thought the review was a bit excessive.

Actually the quote comes from Gemini expressed as a verdict external to my opinion.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I was pretty sure you'd have been more balanced than that writer was.

Moby Dick is denoted as one of the great masterpieces of world literature.

Ummm...it's "denoted" as among the more important books. But there's absolutely no way it's anywhere near on the level the writer wants us to think, the level of a Milton or a Shakespeare. I'm sorry...but it's just not.

For the individual, whether in music, literature or whatever, it's all highly subjective

Well, no. There are criteria, actually. They aren't as firm as in maths or science, but literature has its own standards...clarity, cohesion, structure, significance, characterization, symbolism, poetics...

If somebody told you Moby Dick is an American classic, that's fine. It's not up to some of the other world classics, by any fair metric.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:55 pmUmmm...it's "denoted" as among the more important books. But there's absolutely no way it's anywhere near on the level the writer wants us to think, the level of a Milton or a Shakespeare. I'm sorry...but it's just not.

I'm quite certain Melville didn't think of himself equal to Milton or Shakespeare, as you imply. He was saturated by their language which he recommitted to prose as a prose poem, not in all chapters but in many which includes those M & S themselves would not have been reluctant to write.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:55 pmWell, no. There are criteria, actually. They aren't as firm as in maths or science, but literature has its own standards...clarity, cohesion, structure, significance, characterization, symbolism, poetics...

Well yes! Criteria models just about everything we do - subject to major variances - and then there exists the criteria of nature which establishes everything else. To discover its mysteries requires complete submission devoid of any preconceived notions. Assume your own to have priority and you get nothing except distortions caused by will and wishful thinking.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:55 pmIf somebody told you Moby Dick is an American classic, that's fine. It's not up to some of the other world classics, by any fair metric.

Strange! That's where it's most likely to be included. A masterpiece is a masterpiece by any metric regardless of its origin.

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 12:53 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:55 pmUmmm...it's "denoted" as among the more important books. But there's absolutely no way it's anywhere near on the level the writer wants us to think, the level of a Milton or a Shakespeare. I'm sorry...but it's just not.

I'm quite certain Melville didn't think of himself equal to Milton or Shakespeare, as you imply.

I didn't imply anything about Melville saying it. The reviewer you quoted did. You can find it there for yourself.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:55 pmIf somebody told you Moby Dick is an American classic, that's fine. It's not up to some of the other world classics, by any fair metric.

Strange! That's where it's most likely to be included. A masterpiece is a masterpiece by any metric regardless of its origin.

Yes, a masterpiece is a masterpiece, regardless of origin. But masterpieces also are better or worse, not all one class. Matisse and Rothko painted masterpieces...but nobody regards them as the equals of the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa. Mahler and Shostakovich composed musical masterpieces; but nobody calls them Bach or Mozart.

Melville was a great writer. But nobody should imagine he was compable to Milton, whose work was so epic that for two subsequent centuries poets nearly gave up on the epic form, and lamented that the greatest work in English had already been written before they arrived. And nobody should call him a Shakespeare, whose works were not only much more voluminous, but whose profundity poetic use of language has spawned whole cities dedicated to his memory, has been read and quoted more than any other work (save the Bible itself, which Shakespeare himself frequently quoted on at least 1,200 occasions) and continues to be the height of dramatic achievement even to the present day.

Melville was good. Very good. But he wasn't nearly that good. And anybody can see that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 1:23 am
Melville was a great writer. But nobody should imagine he was compable to Milton, whose work was so epic that for two subsequent centuries poets nearly gave up on the epic form, and lamented that the greatest work in English had already been written before they arrived. And nobody should call him a Shakespeare, whose works were not only much more voluminous, but whose profundity poetic use of language has spawned whole cities dedicated to his memory, has been read and quoted more than any other work (save the Bible itself, which Shakespeare himself frequently quoted on at least 1,200 occasions) and continues to be the height of dramatic achievement even to the present day.

Melville was good. Very good. But he wasn't nearly that good. And anybody can see that.

No one disputes the greatness of Shakespeare or Milton, both supremely underrated in their time and for a long time as also happened with Melville. What I'm saying is the prose of Moby Dick can be as majestic, profound, nuanced and deeply psychological as that written by Shakespeare or Milton whether expressed as prose or poetry.

You disagree and that's fine. There's really nothing more to say. All I wanted to do is give an idea as to what the initial sentence of the book, beginning as an abstraction or metaphor, denotes of the narrator and the subsequent story. This is what Shakespeare and Melville most have in common. Both are supreme masters in the art of metaphor and the language by which it is conveyed.

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 1:53 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 1:23 am
Melville was a great writer. But nobody should imagine he was compable to Milton, whose work was so epic that for two subsequent centuries poets nearly gave up on the epic form, and lamented that the greatest work in English had already been written before they arrived. And nobody should call him a Shakespeare, whose works were not only much more voluminous, but whose profundity poetic use of language has spawned whole cities dedicated to his memory, has been read and quoted more than any other work (save the Bible itself, which Shakespeare himself frequently quoted on at least 1,200 occasions) and continues to be the height of dramatic achievement even to the present day.

Melville was good. Very good. But he wasn't nearly that good. And anybody can see that.

No one disputes the greatness of Shakespeare or Milton, both supremely underrated in their time and for a long time as also happened with Melville. What I'm saying is the prose of Moby Dick can be as majestic, profound, nuanced and deeply psychological as that written by Shakespeare or Milton whether expressed as prose or poetry.

Sorry. Nope. It doesn't come close, except in rare passages. Shakespeare and Milton could do it for days. And you can see by the residual impact: Melville is largely only celebrated in America, where he's less read than celebrated by reputation, and generally not as much as, say, Twain, Fitzgerald or Hemingway. Shakespeare and Milton are true world-scale talents.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 3:23 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 1:53 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 1:23 am
Melville was a great writer. But nobody should imagine he was compable to Milton, whose work was so epic that for two subsequent centuries poets nearly gave up on the epic form, and lamented that the greatest work in English had already been written before they arrived. And nobody should call him a Shakespeare, whose works were not only much more voluminous, but whose profundity poetic use of language has spawned whole cities dedicated to his memory, has been read and quoted more than any other work (save the Bible itself, which Shakespeare himself frequently quoted on at least 1,200 occasions) and continues to be the height of dramatic achievement even to the present day.

Melville was good. Very good. But he wasn't nearly that good. And anybody can see that.

No one disputes the greatness of Shakespeare or Milton, both supremely underrated in their time and for a long time as also happened with Melville. What I'm saying is the prose of Moby Dick can be as majestic, profound, nuanced and deeply psychological as that written by Shakespeare or Milton whether expressed as prose or poetry.

Sorry. Nope. It doesn't come close, except in rare passages.

That's fine. Have it your way...as usual!

Even Harold Bloom who wrote Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human, - which amounts to a considerable hyperbole - regarded Moby Dick as a unique epic often comparing its intensity to the works of Shakespeare and Milton, arguing that it stands alone in its ability to challenge the reader's perception of good and evil.

Think as you like but note, your opinion is nothing more than that. You have the bad habit of stating your beliefs as fact.

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 6:00 am Think as you like but note, your opinion is nothing more than that. You have the bad habit of stating your beliefs as fact.

I try to provide the criteria and reasons, as I have done in this case, so that my interlocutor can form his own view. That's what discourse exchange, conversation, is all about -- we don't need to agree, but we need to be okay with others challenging our view in a rational way, with criteria and with reasons. And we need to be able to discuss them without lapsing into irrelevancies, insults or curtailing the conversation.

But okay. As you will.

I'm not sure I'd have settled into Moby Dick if it were not for the fact that I was reading it as part of a reading group. (One organised by pfalondon.org). However, I loved it. And oddly, one of the things I liked about it, in the end, was one of the things you disliked about it - the fact that it is so rambly and most of the chapters don't bear a very direction relationship to the plot. I found the cetalogical peregrinations fun.

Also, though I don't know a lot about the history of literature, I thought it amazing that the book was written in 1851. It seems so modern. All those chapters written in different voices, or different styles, or even as little mini plays. Astonishing. But there's a lot I still don't get.

OK so if the narrator is basically saying he's an outcast, and unpromising son, why is that? Is it just survivor guilt? Is he the ancient mariner sitting by the sea, explaing why he alone is left? If the ship is sinking, then surely being cast out is a good thing?

RickLewis wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 11:55 pm OK so if the narrator is basically saying he's an outcast, and unpromising son, why is that? Is it just survivor guilt? Is he the ancient mariner sitting by the sea, explaing why he alone is left? If the ship is sinking, then surely being cast out is a good thing?

The Ishmael reference is a bit obscure, to be sure...and all the more, because of the phrase, "Call me..." that precedes it. For some reason, we are to regard him as like an Ishmael, but not an Ishmael, and not as whatever his real name might be supposed to be, either. And the whole Ishmael story isn't very clear in its application to Melville's story. Ishmael represents the human attempt to achieve the plans of God, but failed and rejected because of faithless methodology. (Abraham used a concubine, instead of his wife, Sara, to produce Ishmael, according to Genesis.) But God didn't entirely reject Ishmael; He could have let him die in the desert, but instead, he allows him to become this strange, antisocial warrior of the wastelands. How is that related to the ghostly narrator in Moby Dick? Who can say. So I think that's going to remain a matter of debate. If anybody has an idea, I'm open. I've never heard an explanation that really did the trick.

Was Melville just being stylish, or deliberately obscure? Maybe. Who can say?

Earlier, I compared MD to Heart of Darkness. It wasn't accidental. There's a similar quality to the story, isn't there...the voyage of the naive young man into a dark world of danger and vengeance. The world of whaling certainly was an arduous, dangerous, dirty and marginal kind of world. And Ishmael, or whatever we can call him, is most affected by Ahab, it seems, whose obsessive wrath against the whale drives the whole story. So think of Ahab and Kurtz, and there are a lot of connections, not the least of which they both inhabit a sort of twilight world of darkness and devils, their souls possessed by something they barely understand.

Is the "Ishmael" reference no more than to tell us that this is a story about such an outland? Maybe. Both stories have a sort of heavy psychological weight. Both seem to say, "This is what is in us, whether we like to recognize it or not." And the news is not good.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 2:22 pm
But okay. As you will.

It has nothing to do with what "I will"! It has to do with the consensus of the work in question, which you explicitly deny in order to affirm your own view claiming it only as an exceptional "American" work negating its value as one of world literature. That is patently false. You don't have to like it but to diminish its status as one of the world's greatest novels whose significance is not limited to place and time, proves again that every opinion you have regarding anything instantly morphs into fact.

Both critique and philosophy requires at least a modicum of objectivity regardless of preference and the simple fact is you have none.

As it currently exists, this site is for the brain-dead. What's the point of it! The only reason I replied is that Rick's query was interesting in how a unique opening line may begin to contextualize the story. Melville didn't waste time. The first metaphor or symbol already exists in the first sentence of a very long novel.

I didn't ask nor wanted you to reply but you felt it necessary because it countered yours and immediately viewed as a challenge. Fine, it would have been interesting if the interlocutor had been less opinionated, less prejudiced and simply more intelligent and objective in his responses.

Perhaps you, me and Immanuel Can are having a conversation which is itself a metaphor for the interacton of Ahab, "Ishmael" and the White Whale? But in that case, which of us is which?

Please count me out from any further attempt at conversation.

Must protect the remainder of functioning brain cells from being inundated by a plethora of non-sequiturs. I don't want to walk around with my eyeballs staring at each other. That's not what any so-called self-examination looks like when seeking to take stock of the world with "renovated eyes"!