“The Key to it All”: Why Are We Obsessed with Ishmael, and Are Likely to Continue to Be Obsessed with Him?

Rather than focusing on Ahab’s or Ishmael’s obsession with the White Whale, in my essay I wish to explore reasons why critics have become obsessed Ishmael. This critical began emerge 1940s, after Melville Revival, when, as Clare Spark has shown, were mostly “Ahab-obsessed.” The emergence of Ishmael-centric readings Moby-Dick is usually connected rise Cold War, but intend suggest that—important search for a cultural consensus engendered by aftermath war undoubtedly was—other factors help explain critics’ understanding as, primarily, “Ishmael’s mighty book.” In particular, concurrent rediscovery Henry James’s aesthetics novel explains attention shifted narrator’s perspective, ideologically constructed space “freedom.” But while, most part, employ term ‘obsession’ its commonsensical meaning being intensely preoccupied someone something, last part etymology also comes into play. word derives from Latin obsessio, past-participle stem obsidere, “to besiege.” So, can be understood siege, blockade. Indeed, late, some Ishmael sort obstacle proper text. “discovery” 1940s and especially 1950s seems solved number both formal ideological problems. Yet nowadays not only readers (usually identified New Americanists) themselves “besieged” character narrator, others actually sought, if get rid him altogether, then demote figure secondary importance. story tell reveals that recently much debated dichotomy between “ideological” more “personal” reading may ultimately untenable.