67 pages • 2 hours read
Daniel QuinnIshmael
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Human Civilization’s Myths and Narratives
Ishmael’s primary goal is to convince the narrator that culture is the acting out of a narrative, which inherently frames that narrative as a myth. This discussion follows similar logic and reasoning to the ideas of critical theory, in which the ideological foundations for culture and society are questioned based on their implied assumptions. Ishmael is an exercise in ecocriticism, which examines the assumptions of a culture relating to the environment, non-human species, and how humans are or are not different from the remainder of natural life. The basic difference between Ishmael’s Takers and Leavers is that the Takers view themselves as distinct and above nature, while the Leavers view themselves as an integrated component of nature, and each of these views can be expressed as an ideologically driven narrative.
Early in the narrator and Ishmael’s discussions, Ishmael defines a story as a “scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods” (41), and he defines culture as the enacting of that scenario by a community of people. The “story” in this situation, though linked to “the gods” in Ishmael’s methodology, relates more to what people believe to be entirely true or beyond scrutiny, which is divine in this explanation. The enacting of a story, then, is like carrying out one’s destiny within a narrative, each person playing a specific character to achieve a given end goal. For the Takers, this narrative is one of world domination, which Ishmael extracts from the basic assumptions of Taker culture. These are not explicit assumptions, as shown in Ishmael’s example of a Taker couple who decide to burn part of the rainforest to have another child, but rather assumptions that prevent them from thinking about something. The Taker couple does not think about the need for expansion when they decide to have a child, which tells Ishmael that they are enacting a narrative that disregards the value of biodiversity.
Fortunately, the call to action of the novel centers on the malleability of these narratives that make up culture. The narrator explains to Ishmael that the Leavers’ story is important because the Takers need to “stop enacting” the destructive Taker story, realizing that “they’re involved in a megalomaniac fantasy” (213), comparable to the Third Reich, the German government under Adolf Hitler during World War II. This assumption that a culture can change its foundational assumptions is the basis of all critical theory. Just as feminists hope that global culture can change its basic assumptions about sex and gender, eco-critics like Ishmael, the narrator, and Daniel Quinn hope that the Taker cultures can change their basic assumptions about the relationship between humanity and nature.
The Human Role in the World’s Ecosystem
The bulk of Ishmael’s commentary on the differences between Taker and Leaver cultures focuses on their perceived relationship to the world’s ecosystem, with Leavers accepting a role within that ecosystem as Takers attempt to dominate and control it. The narrator accepts this distinction early on, noting the Taker perspective as a conditional: “If the world was made for us, then it belongs to us and we can do what we damn well please with it” (61). In the Taker narrative, this conditional is a fundamental assumption that guides all Taker actions implicitly. Because they view the world as the property of humanity, issues like the extinction of other species and the destruction of biomes are irrelevant, so long as they do not directly and immediately affect human success. Ishmael calls this aspect of the Taker narrative “a story that casts mankind as the enemy of the world” (75), identifying how Takers see the human role in the world’s ecosystem as the conqueror of nature. However, the Leavers’ story opens a path for humanity that would change its role and benefit the world’s ecosystem.
Ishmael phrases this change in role through the acknowledgment that humanity “is part of a community, upon which he depends absolutely” (99), which reframes humanity as the dependent of nature, rather than the reverse framework, which places humanity above and separate from nature. The idea of dependence plays heavily into the novel’s messaging about humanity and the future of human involvement in nature, since Ishmael ultimately acknowledges how humanity needs to protect and safeguard species and cultures that the Takers have sought to destroy. This discussion changes humanity from a conqueror of the world to a protector, but the narrator takes this shift in role a step further, noting that humanity should “be the first to learn that creatures like man have a choice: They can try to thwart the gods and perish in the attempt—or they can stand aside and make some room for all the rest” (242). In this final conception of the human role regarding nature, the narrator frames humanity as a kind of teacher, not teaching lessons but leading by example for the rest of the species to follow.
In a sense, the novel is primarily about the human role in the world’s ecosystem, as it follows the narrator’s change in perception from seeing humanity as a conqueror, to a participant, and finally to a leader or teacher for other species. The conclusion of this line of reasoning is that evolution and creation continue to occur, and any species might develop the same capacity for reason and desire for domination that humanity has. In that case, humanity needs to change their methods of interacting with nature to preserve the species and cultures that remain, allowing those species and cultures, as they continue to develop, to see the correct way to live in accordance with the world’s ecosystem.
Sustainability and Ecological Balance
One of the first operating premises that the narrator and Ishmael agree on is that Taker culture is “a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live” (25), creating a set of risks for the novel, in which failure will result in total global destruction. The goal, then, is to think of ways to create a more sustainable, balanced system of civilization that can avoid the destruction Ishmael and the narrator foresee, while also flourishing and progressing according to what Ishmael calls the laws of competition. These laws govern the kinds of behavior that living species can engage in without crossing into destruction, and they serve to illustrate the balanced path that nature appears to have always taken across the development of life on Earth. Ishmael’s goal, then, is for humanity to rejoin this path, reversing the damage done as much as possible and focusing on sustainable cultural choices in the future.
Part of the balance of sustainability is scarcity, as the narrator notes how early humanity avoided settlement because “if he settled in one place for more than a few weeks, he’d starve” (68), parroting what Ishmael says is a lie from Taker culture. Contrary to the narrator’s perception of scarcity, Ishmael brings up several examples of Leaver culture that hunt and gather in a limited area or even settle and engage in agriculture without encountering scarcity or damaging the ecosystem. What is different about the Takers, then, is that they violate the law of competition, which Ishmael summarizes as a law “that protects not only the community as a whole but species within the community and even individuals” from attempts at mass extinction (118). The Takers have included within their settlement plans the goals of eliminating competition, eliminating any species they cannot eat, and restricting other species from living in the lands that they conquer, all of which violate these laws and threaten the safety of the global community.
In order to meet the requirements of this law, the narrator fears that people would need to regress to living like hunter-gatherers, but Ishmael explains that “human settlement isn’t against the law, it’s subject to the law—and the same is true of civilization” (246). By this, Ishmael means that humanity can continue producing phones, computers, and air conditioning, but they need to find a way to do those things without damaging the ecosystem around them. A critical element of Ishmael’s plan is population control, following the need for increased food production to feed an increasing population, but he largely implies that little about daily life needs to change moving forward to attain a sustainable lifestyle. Instead, the focus needs to be on preservation and consideration for other species, making room for the rest of the ecosystem to flourish as humanity does.
Mysticism, the Sage, and the Student
Ishmael is a novel driven by guiding dialogue to communicate a “mystical” or esoteric message about humanity and human life. It falls into a genre of philosophical novels, such as Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse or The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, but it uses a specific technique of a kind of Socratic or Platonic dialogue, named after Socrates and Plato, two Greek philosophers. These Greek dialogues involve a discussion of a moral or ethical topic, in which the discussion itself reveals elements of underlying assumptions and conclusions among the participants. Ishmael, like many more modern dialogues, is focused more on a leading dialogue between a sage and a student: Ishmael and the narrator. By placing Ishmael in a position of authority, specifically an authority beyond or at the limit of human comprehension, Quinn establishes Ishmael as a sage or mentor, while the narrator, often confused but eager to learn, is an archetypal student. This method allows Ishmael to formulate his arguments with the assistance of the narrator, who primarily tries to follow along with Ishmael, only occasionally offering a perspective or information of his own, allowing the readers to step into the role of the narrator as students, themselves.
The leading dialogue in the novel is characterized by the narrator’s frequent contributions of simply saying "True” or “Okay” in response to Ishmael’s comments, occasionally asking how something is relevant or commenting to the effect of “I can’t imagine any way in the world you’re going to accomplish that” (98). This pattern of behavior for the student reinforces the idea that the narrator, and the reader, wants to know the grand truths that the sage has to offer, but they are skeptical about those same truths. The narrator is frequently unsure of Ishmael’s meaning, which Ishmael occasionally points out, saying that the narrator is either intentionally feigning ignorance to beg further explanation or is not thinking at all. In either case, the role of the student in this dynamic is to prompt further discussion from the sage, allowing the sage space in the narrative to make a complete argument.
At the same time, the sage himself is meant to be mystical, which Quinn accomplishes by making Ishmael a telepathic gorilla. More than the fantastical nature of Ishmael’s character, though, the fact that he is an animal gives his character an implicit authority regarding nature. Animals are driven by instinct and natural inclinations, so to imagine that an animal is given the ability to communicate, one would expect that animal to have truths beyond or at the limit of human understanding. Ishmael fulfills this role, though he is also knowledgeable about human history, giving him a position of authority from which to criticize human behavior as well. In the end, Ishmael’s death serves to prevent any further questioning of his perspective, allowing the narrator to resolve the novel and send the reader away from the work with a feeling of having grasped some mystic knowledge.
