Who Is The Narrator In Daniel Quinn's Ishmael

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Ishmael Daniel Quinn’s novel Ishmael takes a new approach to the teacher-student relationship. Quinn starts of the novel with a newspaper ad that says that the teacher is seeking the student and the student must have an earnest desire to save the world. This ad originally annoys the narrator because this ad reminds him of his childhood. The narrator as child always had the desire to change the world and he remembers how during his childhood there was a big movement for change, but always hated giving up on his dream This is the point when the narrator decides to go and apply to be the student and where the whole setting of novel changes. Once the narrator arrives in the room he learns that his teacher is a mind-reading gorilla. Although this would normally scare most people off it makes the narrator more intrigued. The reason that Quinn uses a gorilla as the teacher is so that his message would get to the readers more effectively. The whole point of the novel is to make the narrator realize that are world is full of takers and leavers. The takers are the people who use all off our natural resources and never think about the consequences of their actions. While, on the other hand the leavers are the people who take…show more content…
The reason that it is so affective is because Ishmael isn’t your typical teacher and it makes the points he makes more affective. People will responded more to a mind reading gorilla then to a person sitting in a room telling us that are world is being destroyed. The gorilla represents the leavers and how it is not natural for him to be in a room talking to a human, but this is the only way to save the Earth. This book is a way to get Quinn’s views on how the Earth is being treated and what we should do to change that. With the fact that we can’t keep waiting for change but we have to find the solutions and enact them

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