Who Is Daniel Quinn's Ishmael

In Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, an insightful and inspiring book about an unnamed narrator and his teacher, Ishmael. Through the eyes of the narrator and through the teachings of Ishmael. We learn about how “We [as the human race] are killing the earth along with ourselves and it is nearly too late to check our fate” The Orlando Sentinel (the back cover). Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, addresses how we as humans have changed our definition of fate and free will throughout the novel. “So, there you are, rushing headlong toward catastrophe, and all you can do is watch it come” (Quinn 89). Ishmael explains why human culture is a catastrophe. Ishmael tells the narrator that people can’t do anything about our fate since no matter what we do mankind will end up in catastrophe.

Where Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of good and evil. Quinn puts his own twist on this story. Once Quinn is done with his version of the story, the narrator tells Ishmael that the story was told in the leavers point of view. To which Ishmael says, “If it had been written from the taker point of view, the knowledge of good and evil wouldn’t have been forbidden to Adam, it would have been thrust upon him” (Quinn 166). In the leavers eyes, Adam had his own free will to take the forbidden fruit. In the takers eyes, Adam was born to eating the fruit. As leavers slowly became takers they changed their sight on this basic story. Leavers thinking that Adams free will is what cased man’s decent. Well the takers believe that man’s fate cased its