The nameless narrator is Ishmael’s fifth student and the only one who isn’t completely defeated at the end of his instruction. The narrator was an idealistic youth who’s grown into a somewhat jaded yet hopeful adult. He’s open-minded and maintains his desire to save the world, though he often finds […]

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Ishmael is a gorilla who was captured in the wild as a youth and has spent his adult life in various forms of captivity. During captivity, he grows more and more self-aware and eventually comes under the care of Walter Sokolow, who encourages his intellectual growth through their telepathic communication. […]

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Daniel Quinn’s philosophical novel Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit opens with the narrator reading the newspaper and finding himself both disgruntled and intrigued by a personal advertisement. The ad indicates that a teacher is looking for a student interested in saving the world. For most of the […]

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