Moby Dick is widely considered one of the greatest literary creations in history. The density of meaning, the infinite possibilities of interpretation and the ambiguity of implications give the text several layers. Therefore, knowing that the reliability of a work of fiction is always unreliable, the audience must seek to determine whether Ishmael, Melville's omniscient and omnipresent narrator, is meant to be a reliable and reliable witness to all events that take place on board. the Pequod, or an omniscient first-person narrator who spontaneously inherits mysterious knowledge about everything surrounding the journey, even when he is not present. It is by placing Ishmael in the context of history that the first problem arises. Is Ishmael a regular and hard-working sailor who seeks to breathe the fresh air of the sea? Or is Ishmael the first-person embodiment of a third-person omniscient narrator? The latter case would be rare if we consider the normal modes of narration in English literature. However, the possibility exists and so we must turn to the text to find out whether Ishmael knows information that would happen to the normal first-person participant. Having established our hypothesis, we can then examine the trustworthiness and trustworthiness of Ishmael, what effect this literary device has on the tone of the text, and what the immediate and long-term effects of this narrative style are. The tone of Moby Dick changes frequently throughout the text. At first, Ishmael presents himself as a novice sailor who uses the sea as a way to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Every time I feel more and more gloomy about the mouth; every time it's a wet and rainy November in my soul; every time I find myself involuntarily stopping in front of the coffin warehouses and bringing up the rear of every funeral I encounter; and especially every time my hypos ("slang for neurosis", as the glossary tells us) get the better of me [...] I think it is high time to put to sea as soon as possible (18 ). , Melville wants his narrator to be an ordinary man hungry for some kind of adventure or liberation. However, this forces us to question the existence of other narrative techniques within the text, namely Ishmael's continued display of scientific knowledge. For example, if one wanted to analyze the paradoxical nature of Ishmael's narrative transformations in relation to the tone of the novel, "Etymology" and "Cetology" would be good starting points. The etymology preceding the text consists of a long list of references to whales or the word "whale" throughout the history of literature, ranging from the Bible to Shakespeare. It appears that Melville is attempting to justify the symbolism and importance of the white whale ideology by proving its existence as a symbol over time. Hennig Cohen of the University of Pennsylvania provides an interesting perspective on the reasoning behind Melville's conflicting stylistic tones: [T]he etymology of the word whale, which for all its scientific appearance turns out to be incomplete, contains information contradictory. , and is slightly wrong. This is followed by a series of extracts or quotations about whales and whaling from the accumulation of ages, although these quotations are preceded by the warning that they should not be confused with one true evangelical cetology. What is being said here is that Leviathan is real, so much fat for rendering, and at the same timesublime, and for this reason it cannot be hung. No definition can define it, no knowledge system can categorize it. The structure of his story is a hunt for this rogue whale, symbol of the pursuit of absolute knowledge that will elude discovery, and indeed, it is this knowledge that will be found.A useful extract, we can now begin to trace the disparities in tone that make the ideologies behind Moby Dick so paradoxical. Melville seems intent on showing concrete proof of the whale as a symbol through Ishmael's speech, while simultaneously creating an elusive entity that would mystify any readers brave enough to attempt to unpack its meaning. Later, in chapter 32, titled “Cetology,” the reader is again exposed to a narrative shift when Ishmael veers off course to engage in a scientific discussion. This chapter describes the different classes of whales that inhabit the ocean and their characteristics. The existence of this chapter is consistent with the etymological establishment that the whale is a very real creature that exists within the confines and rules of our world; Yet Moby Dick is an elusive and indefinable creature. The “Cetology” that Ishmaël offers us is similar to etymology to the extent that the tone of its existence and its purpose within the novel are paradoxical. The purely scientific chapter appears only for Ishmael to clarify the physicality of the sperm whale. Interestingly, the effect is ambiguous, making the reader even more unable to understand exactly what Moby Dick is or symbolizes, as well as what Melville's stylistic intentions were: It was stated at the beginning that this system would not exist here, and at some point, perfected. You can only clearly see that I kept my word. But I now leave my ketological system thus unfinished [...] This entire book is only a draft --- no, but the draft of a draft" (125). At the conclusion of the scientific discourse on the Leviathan, Ishmael admits to the imperfection of the system he created However, even before this final declaration of recognized failure in the classification of the whale, Ishmael gives many opinions of the "best and latest authorities" in cetology. Examples of quotes from these sources include "confusion", "unfathomable", "incomplete" and "impenetrable". This is how Melville intends to divert the reader's mind around the idea of ​​the mystery of Moby Dick. trivializing a chapter as "Cetology". Although the chapter appears to be a humorous way for Melville to add authority to his narrator and create confusion as to the truth beyond Ishmael's expertise, it is can claim that the information provided in the system is somewhat reliable. David Sisk explains: “Despite Herman Melville's jokes at the expense of such serious cetologists as Scoresby, Beale, and Cuvier, the material he presents with such humor is no joke. Today's reader can still glean from this chapter a substantial amount of precise information regarding the identification marks and behavioral patterns of Earth's major cetacean species... Melville's prose, even if it is playful and non-scientific, remains sufficiently precise so that none of its fourteen descriptions poses any problem of identification. Sisk's comments bring together the idea that seems to sum up Melville's dual style in the composition of Moby Dick: total knowledge is something that will always elude man. Assuming that Melville knew what he was doing when he created the character of Ishmael, the tone of the novel appears to be designed to arouse opposing feelings in his