Ishmael Metaphors

Consequently due to his personal growth as a character, Ishmael's divine spirit becomes saved and he himself is rescued from certain death. Captain Ahab remains unable to accept the concepts of transcendentalism, his pursuit of Moby-Dick is relentless and without mercy. His character has no opportunity for growth or discovery as he shuns the advice of everyone, whilst in pursuit of the white whale. Due to this his fate becomes irrevocably sealed and he is doomed to fail his mission and perish at the mercy of his quarry.

Herman Melville, in his epic novel Moby-Dick, utilizes the symbolism of the color of the Great White Whale to demonstrate his theme of duality. However, Captain Ahab tragically had a single mind set towards Moby Dick, as he believed that the whale was the symbol of the world's evil and had to be destroyed. On the other hand, Ishmael sees that the color white can mean many various and opposing things. It would be dangerous to settle upon any one single meaning. In the chapter, The Whiteness of the Whale, Melville explains the importance of duality of meaning in the world, as opposed to man's (and Ahab's) desire to see only one meaning in any one thing. Melville utilizes the symbol of the

    One might say we are presented with two fish stories in looking at Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, a marlin in the former and a whale in the latter.  However, both of these animals are symbolic of the struggle their hunters face to find dignity and meaning in the face of a nihilistic universe in Hemingway and a fatalistic one in Melville.  While both men will be unable to conquer the forces of the universe against them, neither will either man be conquered by them because of their refusal to yield to these insurmountable forces.  However, Santiago gains a measure of peace and understanding about existence from his struggles, while Ahab leaves the

Captain Ahab always had the desire to go after Moby Dick. His obsession grew even deeper when the great white whale took his leg. He spent several years trying to go after the whale. By being the captain of the ship, he had crew members come along on his journey to help slay the whale. His passion grew deeper each day as he lived amongst the ship and set sails to complete his mission.

In Ishmael Beah’s memoir “A Long Way Gone”, Beah’s imagery reflects both his decrepit emotional state and Sierra Leone’s disarray. When Beah explains how he and Kaloko went to Kamator to see if there were signs of anything living, he describes the scene as such, “The silence in the village was too scary. I was scared when the wind blew, shaking the thatched roofs, and I felt as if I were out of my body wandering somewhere” (46). Here, Beah’s distinguished use of imagery represents his worn emotional state and Sierra Leone’s disarray. How the war has not only turned villages into ghost towns, but also displays the emptiness and the fear that he has felt during this experience. This imagery represents the effects the war had on Sierra Leone

“The rebel pulled the trigger, and like lightning, i saw the spark of fire that came from the muzzle” In this simile Ishmael explains how fast the rebel pulled the trigger and how quick a bullet can really go.

Secondly, the world is made for humans; or that’s what Ishmael wants us to believe. A big argument Ishmael uses to convey his point is in part three of the book.

Throughout his novel, Moby Dick, Herman Melville will often devote entire chapters to the thoughts and actions of specific characters. Two specific examples of this type of chapter are Chapter 36, The Quarter-Deck, and Chapter 42, The Whiteness of the Whale. The first of these chapters depicts Ahab addressing his crew for the first time in order to convince them to hunt down Moby Dick. The second offers insight to the fear that is brought upon by the mere mention of Moby Dick The significance and effectiveness of each of these chapters are enhanced by Melville’s use of rhetoric and style respectively.

After his home was attacked, he fled away to the only escape route out of town. In fact, “Everyone headed for it” (24). He was no longer living like a normal boy, instead, he now is a wanderer without a home. Instead of gaining friends now, he began losing them. His friend once ate an animal and then “Saidu’s body was washed and prepared for burial the next day” (85). Ishmael lost his closest friends to him because of the war. Never in his life had he lost someone close to him like that, and especially not because of war. Not only that, Ishmael joined the army. He was forced to do so in order to live. He used to be innocent and not have to join any war but now, “With trembling hands I took the gun, saluted him, and ran to the back of the line, still holding the gun but afraid to look at it" (111). Ishmael is now carrying a gun and has joined the military to kill the enemy. An army is a place where you are trained to kill, and now Ishmael, only a boy, is joining that group. Not only that, Ishmael also took various drugs. Some days the only things he ate was “...sardines and corned beef with gar, sniff cocaine, brown brown, and take some white capsules” (122). He could not get off of them and would do anything to get more. He had never taken drugs before, but now he was addicted to them and would not get off of them. But, by far, the largest transformation is that Ishmael began to kill people. He once played a “game” where

Ishmael reminiscences of his life before, when he was happy and safe, at this point of the book Ishmael is lost, and is influenced by the individuals around him leading to look at life differently, “my squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed” (126)

For example, a major symbol throughout the story is his cassettes. As part of joining the army, the soldiers receive new clothes and burn their old belongings, so he “run[s] toward the fire, but the cassettes had already started to melt” (Beah 110). Throughout the story, one thing attaches Ishmael to his childhood and past: his rap cassettes. He carries this with him as he runs away from harm, and at times, they help him get through uncomfortable situations. Ultimately, Ishmael goes face to face with terror when he joins the soldiers, and his last tie to a past that was untouched by war burns away. Shortly after, he transforms into a new person, not thinking about his past and family. Similarly, the moon symbol follows him on his journey. As Ishmael runs from the war, he remembers asking his grandmother a question about a saying in their village, and she explains, “…people complain when there is too much sun and it gets unbearably hot… But, she said, no one grumbles when the moon shines” (Beah 16). Throughout the story, the moon remains constant, always following him along his adventure. It remains something of peace in a world of horror for him to look for when the night draws near. It reminds him of a better, nonviolent word, and it revives his feelings of hope. Unfortunately, this is not enough for Ishmael as he finds himself desensitized by all that he has

His most famous book, Moby Dick, features the observant narrator, Ishmael, aboard the Pequot, a ship captained by the menacing one-legged Captain Ahab. Having lost his limb in a previous voyage to an enormous sperm whale named Moby Dick, Ahab scans the seven seas in manic search of revenge against the giant. Queequeg, Ishmael’s menacing best friend, and the rest of the crew are subjected to extreme jeopardy and later death due to Ahab’s monomaniacal disregard for bad omens and danger. The whale slices the boat clean in half and none survive to tells of its greatness except Ishmael.

While Ahab was still the obedient captain he once was, he was one of the most successful and higher rewarding captains. Unexpectedly, in the midst of a whaling, Ahab and his crew encountered the whale he now refers to as “Moby Dick” or “the white whale.” The crew initiated in capturing the whale, but this whale was different. Rather than capturing the whale, the whale captured Ahab and though Ahab escaped, he did not escape entirely. Moby Dick had dismembered and consumed half of one of Ahab’s legs. Ever since this incident, Ahab’s one and only desire or, as stated in the text, “...his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought” has been to kill Moby Dick; which soon turns him obsessive (Melville). Ahab would not let anyone or anything stop him from achieving his goal, “...’I’ll chase him ‘round Good Hope, and ‘round the Horn, and ‘round the Norway Maelstrom, and ‘round

The idea behind this can often times be referred to as fate and free will. Like no other, the concept behind the two can often times get mixed up and confused, while many may choose to believe in fate, millions of others chose not to. Herman Melville can be considered amongst those who chose to believe in fate, and he demonstrates this to extent in his novel “Moby Dick.” Although many times Melville’s writing can tend to jump around and really confuse the writer, it’s his talent to be able to mix in these key themes that he portrays throughout the novel hidden in his text that make him so great. Throughout the novel we see fate and free will play a key role in Ahab’s character. Despite everything telling Ahab to turn around and stop pursuing the whale, it’s his free-will that continuously pushes him forward, therefore upon further analysis it becomes clear to us that Ahab allows his free-will overpower his fate. With this Melville makes it clear to us throughout the text, that the consequences of one’s free will is already destined by fate, however much like Ahab, sometimes we may allow one to overpower the

Herman Melville, in his renowned novel Moby-Dick, presents the tale of the determined and insanely stubborn Captain Ahab as he leads his crew, the men of the Pequod, in revenge against the white whale. A crew mixed in age and origin, and a young, logical narrator named Ishmael sail with Ahab. Cut off from the rest of society, Ahab attempts to make justice for his personal loss of a leg to Moby Dick on a previous voyage, and fights against the injustice he perceived in the overwhelming forces that surround him. Melville uses a series of gams, social interactions or simple exchanges of information between whaling ships at sea, in order to more clearly present man’s situation as he faces an existence whose meaning he cannot fully grasp.