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Ishmael is the narrator (and arguably the protagonist) of the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by U.S. author...

Ishmael is the narrator (and arguably the protagonist) of the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by U.S. author Herman Melville. It is through his eyes and experience that the reader experiences the story of the ship Pequod, and the fight between Captain Ahab and the white whale. He is a central character in the action in the early part of the novel, essentially fulfilling all the requirements of being a conventional protagonist. After the Pequod leaves Nantucket, he increasingly recedes into the background as a commentator, with his voice approaching that of an omniscient narrator at times, able to see into all parts of the ship and into the private motivations of other characters. Ishmael introduces himself in the opening sentence of the novel with the well-known line "Call me Ishmael." The name Ishmael is Biblical in origin: in Genesis, Ishmael was the illegitimate son of Abraham by the servant Hagar, who was cast off after the birth of Isaac, who inherits the covenant of the Lord instead of his older half-brother (in the Islamic tradition, with which Melville was certainly much less familiar, Ishmael is a legitimate son of Abraham). In Moby-Dick Ishmael does not comment on the significance