Destruction of Creation

Every story has a premise, which is the basis to developing that story, later on is enacted. Chapter 12 of Ishmael is the story already enacted, describes and summarizes mostly everything reached during the novel. Takers and Leavers are obviously always surrounding the main topics, so at the end the story is divided in two.

Leavers’ side of the novel is always the good side, in this chapter mentioned as the “endangered”, in which the destroyers are rationally the Takers. Daniel Quinn probably intends to make our culture aware, of how foolish we are acting towards the rest of humanity. We always have the idea that we came here from evolution, a point that the author is trying to disapprove throughout the novel. In this section of the book Ishmael finally states his analysis towards this point, “Man became man by living in the hands of the gods.” (pg.237). For anyone this knowledge is insane, some don’t believe in the gods, others just don’t get, but for what Daniel Quinn says throughout this chapter, his logic verifies everything. Besides as a reader, you think that the ones living in the hands of the gods were the Leavers, and that their story was innocent and naïve. Then I suppose Takers really take everything.

Leavers and Takers both are doing a great job in enacting their stories, “The Taker’s story is, ‘The gods made the world for man, but they botched the job, so we had to take matters into our own, more competent hands.’ The Leavers’ story is ‘The gods made man for the world, the same way they made salmon and sparrows and rabbits for the world; this seems to have worked pretty well so far, so we can take it easy and leave the running of the world to the gods.’ “ (pg. 241). As seen before, the quotation summarizes the several points made about Takers and Leavers developed in the book; their premise, story, and result that so far have been totally opposites. Isn’t it ironic that what we perceive as readers to be good (Leavers), is the contrary to what we as a culture are?

At the beginning of the course we tried to define the question of humanity in general, why are we here? Most said to produce, do better, others to destroy, and very few said that man here was to be the first, the experiment for the rest of history, and in Ishmael’s words, “He’s the trailblazer, the pathfinder. His destiny is to be the first to learn…” (pg.242). They were right, although it seemed confusing, according to Quinn they were right. The question I was asking, was man following what they intended for him?

Ishmael provides his pupil a program for mankind to save the world, and a program for him to save the world in his own way. So, was this it, the end of an entire revolution in Ishmael’s mind? When Ishmael says to his pupil “You understand that I’m finished with you.” (pg.253) means that also our path as Ishmael’s pupil is undone; we are left just as the student mentioned.