What was Ishmael's profession before joining the Pequod?

Before joining the Pequod, Ishmael worked as a schoolmaster. In Moby-Dick, he explains that he first taught school before taking positions aboard merchant vessels and eventually turning to whaling.

This background helps establish Ishmael as different from many professional sailors in the novel. He has maritime experience, but he joins the Pequod as a relatively inexperienced “green hand” in the whaling trade. His earlier life also helps explain his reflective, observant narrative voice.

Ishmael travels from Manhattan to New Bedford and then to Nantucket, where he and Queequeg sign onto the Pequod. Once aboard, he works before the mast as a common sailor and also rows in Queequeg’s boat. He is not the captain, a shipwright, or a specialist such as a sailmaker or cooper.

Readers sometimes confuse Ishmael with Herman Melville, who drew on his own seafaring experiences. Ishmael is a fictional narrator, however, and the schoolmaster detail belongs to his character history in the novel.