“The Key to it All”: Why Are We Obsessed with Ishmael, and Are Likely to Continue to Be Obsessed with Him?

• Published in: European journal of American studies
• Main Author: Giorgio Mariani
• Other Authors: Mariani, Giorgio
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: European Association for American Studies 2023
• Subjects: Herman Melville; Moby-Dick; Ishmael; literary theory; cultural criticism; American literary history; Ahab; White whale
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1697323; https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.20738

Rather than focusing on Ahab’s or Ishmael’s obsession with the White Whale, in my essay I wish to explore the reasons why critics have become obsessed with Ishmael. This critical obsession began to emerge in the 1940s, after the Melville Revival, when, as Clare Spark has shown, critics were mostly “...