“Don’t call me Ishmael” Analytical Essay Life is often described as a rollercoaster, as you never know when you’ll experience a high or a low throughout the duration of your ride. Ishmael Leseur is a 14-year-old boy at St. Daniel’s Boys school. He often describes himself as clumsy, awkward, and a ‘walking disaster,’ as stated in the book (Chapter 1. Page 3). Many other adolescents suffer from the same views on themselves and also tend to have similar struggles to Ishmael Leseur. Ishmael’s grade nine experience is a relatable representation of the ups and downs of life at school. This is exhibited throughout the events, characters, and setting of the novel “Don’t call me Ishmael,” in a way that portrays life for the adolescents of our day and …show more content…
Many examples of this are displayed throughout the book. One significant positive impact of life displayed in “don’t call me Ishmael” is the bond of friendship between adolescents. How they interact, support, and life up each other. A quote from the novel represents this statement perfectly. “Even though we had improved from last time, the difference again was Scobie. It was like having Michael Phelps swimming the final leg for you in the under-seven floaties relay. As long as we could keep the opposition vaguely in sight, we knew that Scobie would reel them in and eat them up.” (Ishmael Leseur, Chapter 25 pg. 143) Friendship, especially at this age, is rather important to anyone going through high school. When there’s a good friendship, there is normally trust. This sense of trust is needed in order to feel safe to talk about things to you friends that you cant with others. If there’s any significant positives of school life, it’s the friendships you can make along the way. However, sometimes life in school isn’t always good and other factors come into view. An example of a negative impact is when Ishmael faces of With Barry Bagsley, the schools notorious …show more content…
Many characters in “don’t call me Ishmael” have their own interesting features about them. This is rather similar to real life. Each one of the characters are stereo types of your average high school adolescents. For example, “If it hadn’t been my terrible fate to end up as Ishmael Leseur, then none of the disasters of my life would have happened and today I would be a happy normal teenager, like everyone else my age.” (Ishmael Leseur, Chapter 4 pg. 15) Almost every teenager to ever walk to face of the earth has thought this at least once in their lives. Another great example is an accurate depiction of what high school romance feels like. This is shown when Ishmael says, “Kelly Faulkner laughed, and her beautiful pale eyes melted my heart like ice cream in a microwave till all that remained was an awful empty feeling. That’s when I knew. Nothing would happen between us. I’d been kidding myself. It just wasn’t possible for eyes as beautiful as that to see anyone as ordinary as me.” (Ishmael Leseur, Chapter 40 pg. 228) This is another perfect display of the adolescent mind and how it feels to have a crush. These are only a few of the examples that could be put into place in an argument like