Famous Novel Openings Explained: Moby Dick

“Call me Ishmael.”

In *Moby Dick* , Ishmael’s character reflects a wandering soul in search of belonging and meaning, one that is certainly no stranger to suffering.

Herman Melville chose this line as the opening for his novel, Moby Dick, which is presently considered one of the greatest works of American literature. Published in 1851 under the original title, The Whale, it was Melville’s sixth and least-popular novel, a failure among his contemporary audiences. It wasn’t until the first part of the 20th century that Moby Dick was rediscovered and subsequently popularized by literary critics and academics who perceived, for the first time, genius behind the apparently erratic text.

Moby Dick is a novel comprised of many genres, which is a large part of why Melville’s contemporaries rejected it. At large, it can be categorized as an allegorical novel because it is flooded with biblical references and metaphysical symbolism. However, the textual form, and therefore also the genre, tends to change from chapter to chapter. One section might take the form of a play, another of a sermon, another of a dramatic Shakespearean tragedy, and yet another of a scientific essay on marine biology. There are innumerous genres wrapped up in Moby Dick, which renders it a rather undefinable, seemingly floundering work, much like the protagonist, Ishmael, in his quest for meaning throughout the story.

The opening line is significant for many reasons, but the most overt of these is the name, Ishmael. This is a reference to an important figure within the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Melville, who was raised as an orthodox Calvinist, would have known the name from the biblical Book of Genesis, although the character is also present in the Torah and the Qur’an. In Genesis, Ishmael is Abraham’s illegitimate son, whom he fathered through his wife’s servant, Hagar. As the biblical story goes, Hagar runs away after being mistreated by Abraham’s wife. In the wilderness, she encounters an angel who informs her of her pregnancy and tells her, “[thou] shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction.” Call him Ishmael. Because God has heard your suffering.

The speaker in the opening line of Moby Dick uses similar language in his statement, “Call me Ishmael.” Note how he never actually says his name is Ishmael, but simply asks the audience to call him by that name. It may be his name, or it may not be. Or, he may be using it as an expression to preface the story with an understanding that we’re calling him Ishmael because God heard his suffering and somehow responded (as in the case of the biblical Ishmael). Whatever the case, it appears Melville intended for it to be ambiguous.

In Moby Dick (and also in the Abrahamic texts), Ishmael’s character reflects a wandering soul in search of belonging and meaning, one that is certainly no stranger to suffering. He embarks on the whaling voyage to help him through a depression, a “damp, drizzly November in [his] soul.” Throughout the narrative, he addresses this state of mind by seeking answers to the unanswerable questions that plague the human condition. And at the last, Melville leaves the story open-ended—did Ishmael find what he was looking for, or did the answers to his questions elude him like the whale that continuously escaped from Captain Ahab’s vengeful grasp?

The novel that opens in ambiguity closes in ambiguity as well. Many believe this to be intentional, and a quality that makes the work equivalent to an epic prose poem. One from which readers can seek and derive all sorts of meaning while perhaps traversing their own November of the soul.