Ishmael

Tagged With: - MOBY DICK

Expulsion_of_Ishmael_and_His_MotherFrom the first sentence of the novel, the reader knows Melville’s narrator, Ishmael, whose motive for his time on the sea is to escape civilization. He says it is his “substitute for pistol and ball,” revealing violent tendencies. GENESIS 16:1-16 and GENESIS 21:9-21 introduce Ishmael as the child of Abraham (Abram) and Hagar, a maidservant, who had a child together when Abraham and his wife, Sarah (Sarai), did not believe they would be able to have a child of their own. The Lord did, though, enable Abraham and Sarah to conceive a child, Isaac. When Isaac was born, Abraham sent Hagar and her son away at Sarah’s request and the Lord’s direction (GENESIS 21:9-14). When Ishmael was born, “the Angel of the Lord said to her…He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him” (GENESIS 16:11-12).

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