Abstract

THE NARRATOR CALLED ISHMAEL

DR INDRANI BORA BHUYAN

Volume: 5 Issue: 4 2015

Abstract:

Herman Melville‟s Moby Dick is a novel which records the adventurous voyage of Captain Ahab in the quest of a particular whale with a white hump and a white forehead. This whale is named “Moby Dick” and the story is told by a narrator named Ishmael. It is through Ishmael that we experience the entire sequence of events which make up the novel. The novel does not only recount Captain Ahab‟s quest for the whale but it also describes the experience that Ishmael gains from this quest as a member of the crew on board the Pequod, that man can never be triumphant when he challenges nature and he loses his reasoning when the only object of his life becomes revenge. Ishmael embodies man as a thinker; whose dreams transcend space and time. Moby Dick describes not only man‟s philosophic wandering but also a world of moral tyranny and violent action, in which Ahab plays the main role. It is Ishmael‟s contemplation, his dreaming that verbalizes the wonders of the seas, the fabulousness of the white whale and terrors of the deep. The ruminations that make up the essence of the story are provided by Ishmael, who is a powerful narrator.

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