Daniel Quinn's Ishmael

In the novel Ishmael, Daniel Quinn expresses his viewpoints of the human race through the telepathic discussions between the unnamed narrator and a gorilla named Ishmael. Through these conversations Ishmael is able to help the narrator understand the nature of things, focusing on answering the question “why are things the way that they are?” As the two characters continue to meet, the narrator is able to grasp the concepts presented by Ishmael which give him a different view of humans, or as Ishmael refers to his culture. Quinn explains the unhealthy relationship humans have with the Earth and how their way of life has negatively impacted it. Throughout the the story of Ishmael, Daniel Quinn draws attention to the concept of captivity, culture,

Ishmael was taken from the wild and held captive in a zoo, a circus, and a gazebo. During his time in various types of captivity, Ishmael was able to develop a sense of self and a better understanding of the world around him. Ishmael states that the narrator and those who share the same culture are “captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order live” (Quinn, 15). He goes to explain that releasing humanity from captivity is crucial for survival, but humans are unable to see the bars of the cage. Using the cage as a metaphor, Quinn is referring to human culture and how they do not see the harm it’s causing. As the novel progresses, it elaborates on how culture came about and why certain people inherit certain cultures. Ishmael refers to a story as the explanation of the relationship between humans, the world and the gods. He defines to enact is to live as if the story is a reality. Ishmael suggest that humans are captives of story, comparing them to the people of Nazi Germany who were held captive by Hitler’s

Quinn made it clear that human behavior and culture are root causes of their increase in unsustainability. He describes that the story in which mankind is enacting is one that makes them the enemy of the world. Ishmael pushes the narrator to provide an explanation of how things came to be this way. How humans were able to cause so much destruction. The explanation given was that The world was created for man, man was made to conquer and rule it and turn the world into paradise under human rule. However, the paradise cannot be achieved because man is flawed (Quinn, 47). Ishmael compares the implication that humans are above any law to an airman who has built a flying contraption that does not obey the law of thermodynamics. He explains that man is on this craft and completely unaware of the law that must be complied to achieve civilizational flight (Quinn, 63). The first craft went well and they felt as if the flight was never going to end. However, they were in freefall because their craft was simply not in compliance with the law that makes flight possible. Their ignorance to the law continuous use of the same unstable craft will accelerate rate that which they are falling. This comparison is a metaphor to how humans live without considering the law of living which is what has brought them to the brink of catastrophe. The culprits for the biodiversity loss include climate change, habitat loss,