Mistakes of Mankind Exposed in Quinn's Ishmael
Most humans are confused. Some know what the problem is, but most
haven't even realized something is wrong. The novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
is an attempt to bring about awareness of the mistakes that people have
made and have continued to repeat through the course of human history. At
its core, the story has two main characters: a teacher and a student. The
teacher represents a solution to the destructive road that mankind has been
traveling down and the student represents us: eager to mend our ways but
apprehensive about the changes that will occur. The lesson of this book is
that each one of us can make changes that will directly enhance our
personal lives, and begin the great task of changing how all humans view
and live out their lives.
The wise and almost omnipotent teacher that had the task of
changing the course of human history is, as one might imagine, a very
special person. He had been watching us for a long time and was ready to
share his knowledge of the human race and its inherent flaws. This "savior"
just happened to be a gorilla named Ishmael. It was for that reason that a
very special student was required to learn his lessons. "Teacher seeks
pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person"(4).
This rather awkward request appeared in the personals section of the
newspaper. Because the bulk of the novel is narrated through the first-
person perspective of the man who answers this ad and becomes the
enlightened student, the reader never learns his name. However, he/she is
exposed to many important aspects of the student and his motivations. One
learns that decades ago he had actually been looking for such a teacher
during the children's revolt of the sixties and seventies but finally
concluded that no ne existed and that the new era was never going to begin.
This realization had embittered him to the point that seeing such a blatant
ad (in the newspaper of all places!) after he had given up hope outraged
him. His motivation for answering the ad was actually a simple desire to
find out what crook was behind the outrageous request so that he could put
it out of mind.
The meeting place for these two, as specified by the newspaper ad,
was an empty apartment. "The place reeked of the circus-no not the circus,
the menagerie; unmistakable but not unpleasant"(7). The right wall
contained a plate-glass window. "Because it was backed by darkness, the
glass in this window was black-opaque, reflective. I made no attempt to see
beyond it as I approached; I was a spectacle under observation. On arrival,
I continued to gaze into my own eyes for a moment, then rolled the focus
forward beyond the glass-and found myself looking into another pair of eyes"
(8). This description conveys the gripping mood that is present throughout
the novel. As the reader progresses through the story, the setting drifts
back and forth from Ishmael's personal history to the present. Ishmael has
been put in a wide variety of situations. He had been captured from the
wild, held captive in a zoo, been a side show at the carnival, and finally,
shown love and given a home. These past experiences are pre sented to the
reader as a way of explaining Ishmael's vast knowledge and as a way of
showing that he has personally experienced both the compassionate and cruel
sides of humans.
Ishmael uses a sort of telepathy to communicate his teachings. He
forces his student to examine himself on a deep level and attempt to
explain why humans go on destroying the Earth day by day while they keep
themselves busy with other, insignificant issues. Through a series of
exercises, Ishmael gets his student to realize that everyone in today's
modern society has accepted and is behaving as if: "The world was made for
man, and man was made to rule it"(74). The point is even made that
basically all mainstream religions support the fact that creation ended
with humans and that there is no need for humans to make room for the
greater things that evolution could make possible. The idea that we might
not be the end of the evolutionary chain would be hard for many people to
accept, but imagine for a moment if the dinosaurs had thought it their
place to conquer the world and run it into the ground as humans are
currently doing. We would never have been given the chance to live. Might
we be doing the sa me to future inhabitants of our great world? Our
universe?* These tough questions force the type of revolutionary thinking
that Ishmael is meant to provide.
Another milestone in the book is when Ishmael and his student
formulate the law of life: a law that dictates how ALL creatures must live
in order for the society of life to exist forever. He compares the modern
society that humans have built with the aircraft built by the early
aviation pioneers. Just as the inventor of the fist airplane had no idea
that his plane stood no chance of actually achieving flight until it hit
the ground, we cannot see that our modern civilization will inevitably
bring the potentially infinite cycle of life to a grinding halt until it
happens. "Trial and error isn't a bad way to learn how to build an aircraft,
but it can be a disastrous way to learn how to build a civilization"(112).
This book has the potential to change the way people think about a
lot of things. It is impossible to deny that if humans continue to devour
the Earth's natural resources as we have been, we will kill off all living
things: including ourselves. Once this has been accepted, one must do
everything in one's power to spread this knowledge and help others correct
their destructive ways in order to live in accordance with nature and its
laws. The student in Ishmael was given this great task. He was alone in his
enlightenment and had a seemingly impossible task ahead of himself.
Hopefully each one of us who comes to accept this knowledge can help take
some of that load and do our part to ensure the existence of life on this
(not our) great planet. This doesn't mean that we have to go back to the
Stone Age; we just have to step aside and make room for life to keep
evolving.
I think that in a lot of ways, the character of Ishmael
represents a little voice that we all have in the back of our heads. Most
people, if asked, would agree that something is not right with how humans
are living, although many wouldn't be able to pin down exactly what is
wrong and how it should be fixed. It is always easier to ignore the little
nagging voice and decide we are too busy with other things than it is to
actually take responsibility for our actions and start making difficult,
but necessary, changes in our daily lives.
Ishmael is a very powerful book that I would recommend to almost
everyone. In fact, I actually did make my mom and my girlfriend read it
because I thought it was so good. At times the plot line moves slowly and
tends to be redundant but the underlying theme is one of great importance
and is worth the slow process of getting there. As childish as it may sound,
each one of us can and must make changes in our own small lives in order to
make a difference.
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