In Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, it starts with a narrator looking through the local newspaper to find a personal advertisement that interests him, yet also frustrates him. The advertisement states that a teacher is looking for a student that is interested in saving the world, the narrator is frustrated because most of his young adult life he has been in search of such a teacher and it bothers him that one is finally looking for him. At first he is almost positive that this advertisement is phony, but he goes to the address in the advertisement to check it out. He comes to find a Gorilla in a room looking at him from the other side of a glass window. This Gorilla can communicate with the narrator telepathically and the narrator soon realizes
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Ishmael was taken from Africa when he was very young and grew up in captivity. He was first put into a zoo, then moved to a traveling carnival, and finally was bought by William Sokolow, which is where he learned to communicate with telepathy. He uses his own experience and wisdom to teach the narrator about captivity. He tells the narrator that Mother Culture holds humans captive from the day they are born. Ishmael tells the narrator that him and all humans are captive to a story, the narrator has no recollection of what story he is talking about and Ishmael states “There is no need to hear of it. There’s no need to name it or discuss it. Every one of you know it by heart by the time you’re six or seven. Black and white, male and female, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, American and Asian, you all hear it,” (Page 36). In my own personal interpretation of what Ishmael is saying, I feel as though he is saying that society captivates us from the moment we are old enough to semi understand. That we are taught that things are to be this way, you must do this, you must act like this, and that we are taught that it is male and female, that that is that and this and this and we do not really have our own say in how we get taught or what we are being taught. I believe that Ishmael thinks that society forces us to think and act a certain
Ishmael was taken from Africa when he was very young and grew up in captivity. He was first put into a zoo, then moved to a traveling carnival, and finally was bought by William Sokolow, which is where he learned to communicate with telepathy. He uses his own experience and wisdom to teach the narrator about captivity. He tells the narrator that Mother Culture holds humans captive from the day they are born. Ishmael tells the narrator that him and all humans are captive to a story, the narrator has no recollection of what story he is talking about and Ishmael states “There is no need to hear of it. There’s no need to name it or discuss it. Every one of you know it by heart by the time you’re six or seven. Black and white, male and female, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, American and Asian, you all hear it,” (Page 36). In my own personal interpretation of what Ishmael is saying, I feel as though he is saying that society captivates us from the moment we are old enough to semi understand. That we are taught that things are to be this way, you must do this, you must act like this, and that we are taught that it is male and female, that that is that and this and this and we do not really have our own say in how we get taught or what we are being taught. I believe that Ishmael thinks that society forces us to think and act a certain