Ishmael the Anarchist

James makes an interesting comparison between Ahab and the totalitarian monsters of the world, Hitler and Stalin for example, claiming that he hates society and therefore vows to change it or to destroy the world trying. Ahab has civilization's most advanced tools at his disposal - the whaling vessel, harpoons, maps, and knowledge of the whales' cruising patterns - but far more valuable than all of these are the men at his disposal. They are talented, sophisticated, skilled men, and they are willing to follow him due to simplified rhetoric, charisma, and the promise of cash.

But Ishmael is more than these men. He is a philosopher, a thinker deeply dissatisfied with the world because he can find no meaning in its spiritual offerings - religion is balked at, cannibalism is worse, and it is unlikely he will gain any spiritual satisfaction at a desk. The world is blank, terrifying, revolting, and Ishmael feels, though he hasn't done anything wrong, a spiritual guilt at this. While Ahab strikes at the whale in order to reform civilization according to his Plan, Ishmael does so out of feelings of anarchy. He latches onto Ahab's revolution like a parasite, simply because it will alter what he hates (the world), James says. 

The character of Ishmael that emerges from James's analysis is strongly remindful of political anarchists everywhere, including Israel. Dissatisfied with the current plan of their nation state, its morals and ethical norms, these intellectuals always lash out at society as a whole, finding fault with every human goal, emotion, religion, etc. The root of their dissatisfaction, as Melville exemplifies, is guilt deriving from the human spiritual wasteland, some interior phantom which neither they nor their critics can comprehend. Terrified of the mechanical, of the routine, of the men at their desks, they are forever driven to shake things up in whatever way presents itself.

From James's analysis emerges a new perception of Melville's relationship with both Ahab and Ishmael, and Ahab, though presented as a totalitarian madman, emerges in a more forgiving light. Though he is hell-bent on radical change or annihilation, he at least has a well-defined and meticulously planned goal, whereas Ishmael is simply along for the ride.