I recently read Moby Dick, and I am having a hard time…
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I recently read Moby Dick, and I am having a hard time wrapping my head around Ishmael as a character.
I guess I don't fully understand his narrative role. I notice he sometimes comes off to me as noble, the way other characters praise him and interpret him as insightful, but it feels like his behavior is never especially moralized. I don't see him as morally grey, it feels as though he is almost portrayed as a character unrelated to morality.
For example, Ishmael discusses sort of a deep dissatisfaction in life near the beginning of the text, implying that he joins work on this boat because he is a dissatisfied wanderer with a sort of repressed desire for death, but on the boat, he looks far different. He comes off as deeply grandiose, thoughtful and he doesn't really seem aware of the dissatisfaction he mentions earlier.
I guess what I'm curious about is, do the rest of you think of Ishmael's characterization as a lack of attention that allows him to serve the purpose of a simplistic communicator of ideas, or do you think of Ishmael as an unreliable narrator, who's personal qualities are being concealed by him as a narrator? I can't tell if I'm seeking meaning where there is little to be found.
#entertainment
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I guess I don't fully understand his narrative role. I notice he sometimes comes off to me as noble, the way other characters praise him and interpret him as insightful, but it feels like his behavior is never especially moralized. I don't see him as morally grey, it feels as though he is almost portrayed as a character unrelated to morality.
For example, Ishmael discusses sort of a deep dissatisfaction in life near the beginning of the text, implying that he joins work on this boat because he is a dissatisfied wanderer with a sort of repressed desire for death, but on the boat, he looks far different. He comes off as deeply grandiose, thoughtful and he doesn't really seem aware of the dissatisfaction he mentions earlier.
I guess what I'm curious about is, do the rest of you think of Ishmael's characterization as a lack of attention that allows him to serve the purpose of a simplistic communicator of ideas, or do you think of Ishmael as an unreliable narrator, who's personal qualities are being concealed by him as a narrator? I can't tell if I'm seeking meaning where there is little to be found.
#entertainment
source
| 2,000 mlx | |
| 3 | |
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