The novel begins with a famous line: “Call me Ishmael.” Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick, seeks “freedom” from his life in New York City, and decides to head north to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to find a job on a whaling ship. In New Bedford, at the Spouter Inn, Ishmael meets Queequeg, a “native” man from Kokovoko, in the Pacific isles, who is trained as a harpooner on whale-ships—a man who actually hunts and catches whales.