Study Questions for Ishmael, the novel by Quinn

 

 

 

 

Questions for the Ishmael Reading

“They made an ingenuous and disorganized effort to escape from captivity but ultimately failed, because they were unable to find the bars of the cage. If you can’t discover what’s keeping you in, the will to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual.”  Ishmael, p. 25

Question 1-8 cover pages 1-63 in the Ishmael novel. In answering all of these questions as we work our way through the book, quote directly from the novel itself to back your answers and to make your points. This is not optional.

1.      Who and/or what are the main characters in the book? List these characters and describe them briefly. What have they done so far in the book?

2.      When was Ishmael born? Where and how did he grow up. Describe his personal history.

3.      Why is Ishmael called Ishmael instead of, say, Goliath? Do not assume that this is unimportant. Look deeper. Where have you heard these two names before?

4.      What is “mother culture” for Ishmael? What is its function? Do questions of truth and falsehood matter to mother culture? Explain.

5.      What are the contents of the bag or travel kit that Ishmael packs for his journey of intellectual discovery? List the contents.

6.      According to Ishmael, we are “captives of a story” – a scenario that interrelates us, the earth, and god. What is this story according to Ishmael? 

7.      What are the differences between the Leavers and the Takers? Go into some detail about this.

8.      Extra Credit: who was Socrates? What is the Socratic method?

Question 9-16 cover pages 64-148 in the Ishmael novel:

9.      How did things get to be the way they are now? That is, what is the story that the Taker’s are enacting on Earth according to Ishmael and the narrator? Summarize it.

10.   What does Ishmael say about the role of Prophets in Taker culture? Why does he bring the matter up at all?

11.   Copernicus is mentioned at one point in the reading for this week: where? In what context? And why?

12.   Why does Ishmael spend your valuable time talking about a pedal-driven contraption with flapping wings? What is he driving at? How does it function as an analogy?

13.   What is the “law of limited competition”? What does it mean and why is it mentioned?

14.   Isaac Newton and Thomas Malthus were mentioned in your reading: in what context? Who is Thomas Malthus and where have we read of him? Does Ishmael agree or disagree with Malthus’ views? Why bring in Newton? Explain.

15.   Why are we reading this book in our History class? Give several reasons, not one.

16.   Extra Credit: Who is Peter Farb? What book did he write in 1968 and what did he argue in it?

Question 17-28 cover pages 148 to the End of the Ishmael novel:

17.   What is Ishmael’s interpretation of the Biblical Fall (“the eating of the forbidden fruit,” and so on)?

18.   How did members of the Taker culture, of which the human narrator is a member, become “cultural amnesiacs”?

19.   Hammurabi is mentioned in the Sherman and Quinn texts, both. Who is Hammurabi again and why is he significant? Why does Quinn mention him in the novel?

20.   According to Ishmael, why do the Leavers remain Leavers, in spite of what the Takers say about the “civilized” life?

21.   What picture does Ishmael paint of hunters and gatherers as a group? Give three instances of what he says about them, citing your instances.

22.   What does Ishmael mean when he describes the Leavers as “living in the hands of the gods”?

23.   What does Ishmael mean when he describes the Takers as believing “the world belongs to man”?

24.   What is Ishmael’s program for saving the world – the “new paradigm of human history”?

25.   If your Sherman textbook were written by Ishmael instead of Sherman, how would it be written differently? What would be stressed? What wouldn’t be stressed? Whose history would truly deserve to be written?

26.   What happens to Ishmael near the end of the book?

27.   Extra Credit: do some research on the Net on Montesquieu’s Persian Travels. What is this book about? And how might it relate to Quinn’s novel?

28.   Why are we reading this book in our Western Civilization course? Give 3 reasons and discuss each in detail.