The Rise and Fall of Ishmael

There is a case to be made that perhaps he's running from something in Manhattan. He never seems to mention it positively either. It's this second or third time he's mentioned Manhattan and he always seems to have a somewhat dismissive or negative attitude towards it. In the 1850s, whaling is beginning to reach its peak. No one's going to want whale oil anymore. So there's something of the doomed nature of this that is clear to us.