Call me Ishmael

>Call me Ishmael

It's probably the most famous opening line ever but it's literally just saying his name. Is there some great significance here? Was it supposed to reveal something about the character? Or is it some kind of allusion?

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it’s honestly not a very good book, highly overrated american show offy nonsense

It's just a memorable beginning.

>Was it supposed to reveal something about the character?
Well it introduces the character and narrator in a way that is endearing and friendly.

Not everything has to be 3deep5u.

Ishmael is Melville's self-insert, when he wrote that line he was being literal.

i read one annotated version that says "call me" implies it is not his real name, that he was outcast from his family or something, can't remember exactly it has been years

how about reading the motherfucking bible you retards

>Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid,—what will compare with it?

but Ishmael is only relevant in the Quran

the Koran is just the Bible for terrorists

Ishmael was Abraham's son by hagar. His first born who was cast out when Isaac, a legitimate son, was born. That's old testament stuff.
It has parallels to melville's own life.

How? He is hardly mentioned by name at all

kek

Yeah, but he dies without any real story to him.

God promised Ishmael's mother Hagar that Ismael would be the father of a great nation (the non-Jewish arabs) whereas Isaac would be the father of God's nation (the Hebrews/Jews).

So basically, everything bad with the world today can be traced back to Ishmael. Hardly insignificant.

That's the Torah too shlomo.

It's a nice name. Very biblical.

The Quran still references him it just doesn't mention his name.

Ishmael was Abraham's favorite son. He doesn't deserve the hate but you know who does Abraham's cunt wife Sarah

Yeah, but Ishmael himself is barely mentioned.

That's not true at all. Isaac was his favorite son and took on his covenant with God and patriarchy

>Favorite son
>Nonchalantly going to sacrifice him
Yeah okay. Abraham didn't like his heir all that much or his wife. The moment she died he immediately got a concubine and had a bunch of kids with his new woman

>So basically, everything bad with the world today can be traced back to Isaac
Ftfy.
Bedouins are harmless and Arabs in general were only relevant for the first few centuries in the Muslim world. Isaac's spawn were and are a blight upon the world. The most damning factor against them are them constantly disappointing God.

>You didn't believe I could do it, but in the end i managed to kill Moby, dick.
Yeah the beginning is meh but the ending is straight up garbage

Why doesn't he say "My name is Ishmael."?
and it does have significance. It reveals something about the character and is tied into one of the main themes of the book. The opening line exists for the same reason Etymology does, but it also has greater purpose in introducing the character of Ishmael.

Put some more effort. The whale lived at the end

His name isn’t really Ishmael, he is choosing it as a way to communicate who he is to his reader. A wanderer, one who has been cast aside by life, a man who seems to always find himself at opposition with the world, who seems to always be getting into trouble. Who is the Ishmael of the Bible? And with his noncommittal “call me” does he foreshadow his ambivalence towards certain narrative responsibilities (as when Ishmael describes things he couldn’t possibly have been witness to later in the book). It’s one of the greatest first lines of all time. It’s an imperative, a command.
No he doesn’t die without a story.

He becomes a wanderer, a ruler of the desert clans, a master with a bow, with a wife of his mother’s heritage (Egyptian), and 12 sons who begin a lineage of 12 tribes (like the 12 tribes of Israel which will come from Jacob, who would be Ishmael’s nephew), a donkey of a man, whose hand rose against everyone, and their hands rose against him, and when his father died, Ishmael returned to bury him alongside his brother. He went back to bury the father who left him and his mother for dead, with the brother who took from him the life he could have had.

I'd say Ismael won in the end. Isaac was estranged from his eldest son and his asshole younger son and wife conspired against him meanwhile Ismael was living the comfy life of a successful warlord

Thanks for the spoiler

Think there's any significance to the fact that his name essentially never comes up again? Or that he's barely even a character in the story?

Basically Ishmael was cast out from his family. If you're wondering whether there's any significance, the epilogue should remove any doubt.
>On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.

He meant an orphan of the Pequod you dope

>what is symbolism
>grug not know how one thing have many meaning

i wonder if maybe he wasn't being literal or something

>He had eluded me for so long he was figuratively and literally my white whale.
Jesus Mel, pointing out a cliche doesn't make it good.

you are a fucking animal

Literature is just memes in a different form.

I think there's a lot of truth in that

Pleb.

>Call me Ishmael because that's the name on my birth certificate. Thanks mom.
From a long lost first draft of Moby Dick.

That's why he was going to sacrifice him you dolt, it's only a worthy sacrifice if the loss hurts you

>american show offy nonsense
actually a quite perceptive criticism

i think you'd do well to give it a bit more thought

>Is there some great significance here?
It lets you know right away that he is Jewish. It was very nice of him, so that you can close the book right there and then.

'books is just memes!' this is the final product of this meme loving board of shit!

>figuratively AND literally
>american lit

I've only read that book 'don't call me Ishmael' - good book

Ishmael is the name of an outsider. 'His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him.'

You clearly have never lived near bedouins.

Inb4 Call me Caitlyn

He's not saying his name. He's telling you what to call him

Sounds like a complaint of someone who can’t read

Spoiler Bastard

It's one of the best books ever written and, almost definitely, the best american book ever written, but ok.

What the fuck are you doing in a Moby Dick thread if you haven't read it. Seems more your own fault than anons.