Why does only Ishmael survive at the end of Moby-Dick?
Ishmael is the objective voice of reason and insight that comes to understand and interpret Ahab's monomania. Ishmael even goes so far as to garner some of the same feeling as Ahab himself possesses. In other words, he is willing to see the White Whale as the emblem of that element of things unseen that is horrible:
“Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love,” he says, “the invisible spheres were formed in fright.”
Ishmael's understanding and acceptance of Ahab's stance also allows him to be the philosophical voice that realizes that multiplicity paradoxically embodies unity while diverse parts paradoxically generates oneness. Specifically, the White Whale has no one definitive meaning, only a multiplicity of meanings that ultimately unite while the diverseness of individuals on the Pequod generates oneness as each contribute to the whole of experience. In addition, as suggested in the quote, Ishmael...
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understands the potential for evil in the "terrible unseen."
Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect
It is for these reasons, his role as empathizer with Ahab and his role as insightful philosopher carrying Melville's message, that Ishmael is the one to survive and is the sole survivor. n other words, the messages of unity in diversity, of oneness in diverse groups, of potential evil in the unseen carry the importance of the novel; overriding importance is not given to the fate of the characters.
In "Moby-Dick," why is Ishmael the only survivor?
The name "Ishmael" is associated with being an outcast. Ishmael never truly gets involved in Abab's plan for revenge. He is also one of the few men to have a true friend on board the ship, Queequeg. His lack of involvement in the revenge plus his connection with another man saves his life. It is Queequeg's coffin that he clings to until the Rachel, looking for the lost son of the captain, finds him. Since he is more of an observer than a participant, he can tell the story from a more objective standpoint than others from the crew.
Why does Ishmael survive in Moby-Dick, aside from being the narrator?
As the narrator of Moby Dick, Ishmael is the voice of his author Herman Melville who contemplates the inscrutableness of the universe. Melville, who once said that the sea was his teacher, employs the sea as teacher of Ishamel.
1. Ishamel represents man's isolation.
Ishmael, like his Biblical name is a rootless individual, and as a loner, he can be more objective than other men. Even though he feels that Queequeq is his "own inseparable twin brother" as he holds the monkey-rope in Chapter 49, he realizes that he only has "the management of one end of it." When his friend Queequeq decides to have his coffin made and to die, Ishmael understands nothing of the pagan's soul or heart. Even though he squeezes the sperm from the whales with the others and shake hands warmly with them, Ishmael does not know the inner workings of their hearts, either. Thus, Ishmael represents the aloneness of man and is picked up by the Rachel
that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. (Epilogue)
2. Ishmael expresses Herman Melville's perception of the inexplicability of the universe
Try as hard as he can to analyze and explicate the workings and properties of the whale, Ishmael does not understand the creature who wears "a pasteboard mask" as Ahab describes this inscrutability of nature. On many occasions, Ishmael expresses a feeling about the Fates as he senses the unsympathetic and irresistible force of Nature. Therefore, his character represents the inexplicability of the universe as he senses the interplay of fate and chance. In Chapter96, for instance, Ishmael narrates,
So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently guided the way of the fireship on the sea. wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. the continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at last begat that unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at the midnight helm.
Besides being the narator who is the most objective of characters and who has an eagerness to learn, Ishmael best represents the isolation of man. In addition, in his sometimes ineffective attempts to explain what happens throughout the novel, Ishmael conveys to the reader the interplay of fate and chance.