Main Sociological Concepts of Daniel Quinn - Literature review Example

Main Sociological Concepts of Daniel Quinn Represented in the Novel “Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit” This paper is dedicated to the philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. We meet a narrator, who is disgruntled and intrigued with a newspaper’s advertisement, as it is dedicated to a search of a student. The narrator is quietly surprised and keeps the address in his memory to find an empty office and meet a gorilla in one of the chambers. The narrator understands after a short telepathic dialog that gorilla is the teacher he had been looking for. Ishmael was the gorilla’s name and he was caught at a young age and spent his life in captivity. Through his telepathic communication Ishmael was able to study and to educate himself. The author conveys his own philosophical and sociological theories through the talk of a gorilla to make the reader to think about the other life-forms and concepts. “I expected to see that the new era had begun, that the sky was a brighter blue and the grass a brighter green”, says the author (Quinn 4). It sounds like idealization of the community, when the mind is still filled with dreams, but is not naive, as a child. So, the narrator started to visit Ishmael in order to understand the cultural history. Ishmael is raising the question of existence, thinking “If I’m not Goliath, then who am I?” He is sure that “a human would ask this question, because he would know, whatever his name, he is assuredly someone”. Ishmael comes to the conclusion that is he was not Goliath; he “must be no one at all” (Quinn 16). So, one of the major book’s themes is identity, especially on the early pages of the novel. Eventually, we are helped to realize that given identity is not simply accept what we need. Ishmael realizes the social labels also are misleading people, as Mother Culture is imprisoning people within society with the simple way of creation of titles and names. Ishmael’s speech subject is to show the influence of captivity, which is the central subject of the book, on the human mind. He believes that the “Taker Prison” holds most of people captive in the society as everybody is needed to “play your part, you had to take your place in the story and the salvation is in working to dismantle the limitations of prison (Quinn 135). The teacher insists that both animals and human beings are ruled by laws of nature with are exact, clear and obligatory like the laws of gravity or aerodynamics, however the main problem lies in the fact that humans do not want to understand and agree they are subject to the described laws. Ishmael reasons that evolution was inevitable when the mankind kept itself in the “hands of the gods”, but then it started steps to adaptation in order to survive. However evolution is no necessary more, as people had taken full control of the supply of the food. Food is like a symbol, it “is everywhere” and “one does not think of feeding as a distinct activity at all”. The author compares feeding with a “delicious music the plays in the background of the all activities throughout the day” (Quinn 12). Here I would like to mention the common scientific theory called the Maslows Hierarchy of Needs according to which in the base of motivation system the physiological needs are placed as well as the need of feeding. Quinn describes a contrast between the way when food is distributed in civilization, and how it is handled in the wild conditions. In the last case it is free for the taking and plentiful and keeps the humans under the population control according to natural rules. Ishmael claims that before totalitarianism of agriculture, the planet was like a paradise. Ishmael claims that man can’t go beyond the laws of nature, as «man is born to enact, and to depart from it is to resign from the human race itself, is to venture into oblivion” (Quinn 137). His verdict is disappointing and a bit cruel: “your place is here, participating in this story, putting your shoulder to the wheel, and as a reward, being fed” (Quinn 137). Ishmael offers the following classification of human beings: Leavers and Takers. He calls Takers as the members of the dominant culture, who think that humans are the world’s rulers, whose mind keeps an idea to grow without check and through innovations of technology manage the planet. The opposite idea is represented by Leavers, governed by the basic rules of simple life. Ishmael brings the narrator to the sum of the fact that Taker’s society is falling down; it is going to crash, when the biological resources of the Earth would be exhausted. Unfortunately with technological progress humanity is increasingly relying on their inventions. What yesterday might seem like a small inconvenience today will result into a serious obstacle, and tomorrow – into a disaster. Sometimes urbanized community poorly imagines what is actually required in order to grow wheat or potatoes. It is not a secret the agriculture of the most countries is in a stage of decline. Ishmael says that agricultural revolution was not a relatively short event, such as the Trojan War, but “it is the foundation of your vast civilization today” (Quinn 153). For Ishmael a world requires a co-dependence between all types of life. The author raises question if the modern civilization is better than the other lifestyles and if it is really the only way. Ishmael is returning to cultural myths in order to help the narrator to understand the qualities and differences of Taker and Leaver cultures. Ishmael provides reader with alternative interpretations of the stories dedicated to the human’s creation, from the Big Bang theory to the episodes of Bible stories, such as Adam’s and Eve’s and Cain and Abel`s stories. The author argues, for example, that the first murder of a Leaver (the teacher put Abel into this group) was made in order to take more land. Through the history we see that the question of land lording appears, being the purpose of cultivation at first and later it became the commerce issue. It may be a disadvantage of huge amount of world’s cultures. Humans have created mythology and religion for replacement of the laws. Historically the myths of the Bible were used to explain the expansion of Taker cultures, to define human beings as the top of evolution. Religion provides people with license to do whatever they please. We notice that the author denounces prophets in every kind, considering they enforce the laws of the life. “Man was born to turn the world into paradise, but tragically he was born flawed. And so his paradise has always been spoiled by stupidty, greed, destructiveness, and shortsightedness”, says the teacher (Quinn 191). The man is rather the resident of the planet, than a ruler and his way is to be the pioneer, not to be the last. The idea is to allow the opportunity of development to the other species, the opportunity to find the point of their self-awareness against the desire of Mother Culture, as in that way Ishmael sees only annihilation and destruction of all creatures. “Any species that exempts itself from the rules of competition ends up destroying the community in order to support its own expansion” (Quinn 135), says Ishmael, and what do we see around us? Man is selfish by nature, and thanks to so pleasant concept of superiority, he believes himself to be a king, ruler, for whom everything is permitted. As a result, the persons, who noticed in time, organized Green Peace, the protection of animals and so on, while many species have disappeared from the face of the earth due to human. In other words, mankind had already begun the way, which Ishmael is afraid of. Unfortunately this concept of life and outlook is “assembled from the table talk of your parents, from cartoons you watched on television, from Sunday School lessons, from your textbooks and teachers, from news broadcasts, from movies, novels, sermons, plays, newspapers” (Quinn 140). A man is never alone, even being born, he is not a “tabula rasa” - he gets into a vicious circle, forming his beliefs and tenets. Ishmael talks about how humanity can get freedom of this vicious circle, but it seems that he does not believe into this result. It is what the Mother Culture does, what it explains and preserves. The story is coming to end. The narrator has missed several meetings with Ishmael. Finally, having escaped to his office, he discovers that Ishmael has died from pneumonia. Our unnamed narrator begins his own way to fulfil Ishmaels desire to help the others to define the problems the Taker’s culture has faced and to find a new balanced way of life on the Earth. Works Cited Daniel Quinn (2009) Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, Random House Publishing Group. Print. Read More