As one of the many biblical allusions, the name Ishmael
refers to the son of Abraham and Hagar, the maid-servant of Abraham's wife Sarah. Since
Abraham had no descendants because Sarah could bare no children, Sarah offered him her
maid-servant. So Abraham took her as his second wife; however, it was the custom that
any child conceived by this second wife would belong to the first wife and her husband.
Learning this, Hagar fled when she was pregnant, but an angel of Yahweh told her to
return and have the child because Abraham's descendants would be numerous. While this
promise was extended to Ishmael, he was also cursed as Isaac was later born to Sarah and
Abraham. After Isaac's birth, Sarah asked Abraham to expel Ishmael; he and his mother
Hagar were released and roamed the desert afterwards.
Like
his nomenclature, the narrator of Melville's novel, Moby Dick has
no home and spends years on the sea. But, also like the biblical wanderer, Ishmael is
also protected from death and survives the destruction of the
Pequod, perhaps in order to retell the story of Ahab and the
mysterious great white whale and to be evidence of the arbitrarinessof nature as well as
proving that Moby-Dick is not completely an instrument of
retribution.
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