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Unreliable Narrator
Explanation and Analysis—Ishmael as Narrator :
Ishmael, a storyteller who constantly emphasizes the limits of his own knowledge and that of writing, proves himself to be an unreliable narrator, and one who doesn’t hide it. Indeed, Ishmael repeatedly hints that he cannot give a full and complete picture of the tales he is narrating. His discussion of the impossibility of representing the whale in art—a discussion that highlights the imperfections of his own attempt to do so through writing—is one example that emphasizes this self-awareness. When he attempts his classification of the whales, he is quick to acknowledge that he can “promise nothing complete” because “any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty.” In other words, a full and faithful tale would be an impossible feat.
Furthermore, the very contents of Ishmael’s writing, which details scenes that Ishmael could not possibly have witnessed (for example, Ahab’s soliloquies in his cabin), draws attention to the fictional construction of this narrative, which is mediated through Ishmael’s own imaginings. In turn, readers see how Ishmael’s narration of such passages requires him to masquerade in other roles. This is also something readers can see in the fictional apparatus given to the novel, with the “Etymology” and “Extracts” sections that precede the main narrative seeing Ishmael also take on the guise of a fictional “late consumptive usher to a grammar school” and a “sub-sub librarian.” Ishmael’s explicit caution to the reader not to fully trust him—“therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggeldy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology"—adds an extra layer of irony.
Perhaps most famously, the unreliability of Ishmael’s narrative is also indicated from the very start with his opening introduction: “Call me Ishmael.” By telling the reader to “call” him Ishmael instead of simply stating that he is Ishmael, Ishmael immediately casts doubt over whether this is his real name and alerts the reader to the fact that this is a novel of self-construction in which Ishmael can present himself as whomever he wants to be.
Related Themes:
