Ishmael Lesson Plan

Why does Ishmael tell the jellyfish story? What is the point of the story? How is it similar and how is it different from the story the narrator tells?

The narrator’s story arranges the facts to create a story in which man is the culmination of evolution. Ishmael tells the same basic story, but in his version, the climax of evolution is the jellyfish. Ishmael’s point is that a collection of facts does not make for a factual story. How the facts are linked together can result in a misleading or incorrect story. A story with the same basic facts can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Ishmael asks the narrator to provide evidence that creation came to a halt when man...