Impossible Idyll Dillon Pollio 12th Grade

In Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, Mother Culture is the embodiment of unquestioned influences man is accustomed to living by. Her story tells the Takers that they were intended to lead the world into paradise; however, quite the opposite happened. Because of Mother Culture’s bias towards the Takers, the world has been brought into a continuous downfall that cannot be stopped. Mother Culture’s favorable view of the Takers also leads to their arrogance and the irony in their story. Mother Culture’s story exhibits the irony in the Takers’ failed attempt to create paradise.

As the perpetuator of the Taker culture, Mother Culture continuously glorifies the flawed lifestyle that was founded on ignorance and conceit. Ironically, the majority of the Taker society is unaware of Mother Culture’s existence, and so, Ishmael enlightens the narrator on whom Mother Culture is. “Mother Culture teaches you that is as it should be” (37). Mother Culture is essentially a guru to the Takers and the spine to their of life. She teaches the Takers who they are and what they are supposed to be. “Except for a few thousand savages scattered here and there, all the peoples of the earth are now enacting this story” (37). Although Mother Culture has stories for...