Yes, Ishmael was the main protagonist of the story and a witness to Ahab’s vengeance and blasphemy, which was shared by the entire crew and was actually explained by Starbuck in one scene, also by Stubb who forced Ishmael to share in it as a condition of sailing with them.
I just thought it sucked that the cabin boy got killed too... I forget his name... I was about his age when I saw the movie.
I forget the boy’s name too but it was quite moving.
Ishmael had a deep and natural empathy for the various people he encountered, even the obnoxious ones. That was an essential part of Moby Dick, more important in its way than revenge.
The drowning of the cabin boy was foreshadowed by the earlier scenario where Queequeg saves the insulting hayseed country boy from Vermont and quietly goes back to smoking his pipe.
Melville truly was a Fellini type artist, as Bartleby and Billy Budd show.
Think the cabin boy was Pip