Ishmael Chapter 8 Summary

Chapter one, consisted of The Narrator meeting Ishmael and how Ishmael came to be in the position he is in. He spent most of his life in captivity, and it was that captivity which helped shape his sense of self and his world view. His Intellectual growth started at the zoo were he like the other animals started questioning why he was there. He believed that since he was more closely related to humans is the reason why he could actually try and figure it out. It wasn’t until he was sold to the menagerie were he started really listening to the humans and picking up on their speech. One day a mysterious man arrived and gave him his name, that man was Walter Skolows his soon to be benefactor. Skolow taught Ishmael everything he knew about the world and it was there he learned to speak. Ishmaels’ time in captivity showed him that humans are just as much a prisoner as he was except the humans are trapped by Mother Culture. In chapter two, Ishmael covered some influential terms that he goes in more depth later on. A
These laws are; don’t wipe out your competition for food, don’t destroy your competitor’s food supply to grow yours, and don’t deny access to food to others. Ishmael enlightens the Narrator with the inner workings of population growth. If the food supply increases so does the population, and vice versa a decrease in food then a decrease in population. The fact that the Takers send food to impoverished country does not help because as we are feeding them their population grows so much so that their ecosystem can’t catch up with the growth. The Native Americans were great at keeping their population in check by respecting the borders of other tribes and by staying in their own territory. Another upside to the Leaver culture is unlike the Taker culture that is overwhelmed with depressed and suicidal people they seem to be more content with their way of