Moby Dick and the origin of "American hero"

Moby Dick begins with the narrator's statement: "Call me Ishmael." The statement communicates the narrator's feelings of identity with the biblical Ishmael, Abraham's son with Hagar. After Sarah, Abraham's legitimate wife, gave birth to Isaac, Ishmael was disinherited in favor of his younger half-brother, and renounced by his father. He and his mother were thrown out of the family home, forced to live in wilderness and provide for themselves anyway they could. Therefore, the very …

…by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!"