Question Mark: Ismail Ax?

Cho Seung-Hui

(Image from Wikipedia)

I just learned that the suspect in yesterday's Virginia Tech shootings was a 23-year-old South Korean man named Cho Seung-Hui (조승희, 曹丞禧) who had lived as a legal resident alien in the United States since 1992, when he arrived at the age of 8 with his parents.

I guess that we'll soon discover his motives, for according to this report in the Belleville News Democrat, he left behind a note several pages long:

ABC News, citing confidential law enforcement sources, reported that Cho left a long and "disturbing" note in his dorm room. The note, running several pages, reportedly begins in the present tense and then shifts to the past tense. It contains passages explaining Cho's actions and says, "You caused me to do this," the sources told ABC News. (Kytja Weir et al., "South Korean undergraduate identified as VA Tech shooter" (April 17, 2007))

Since two hours separated the first two killings, in a dormitory, from the 30 other killings in a classroom building, I wonder if he wrote this message during that time. The past tense of the statement "You caused me to do this" might refer to what he had already done and was now imminently intending to do. The report says that the dormitory where the first shooting took place was immediately locked down and secured by police, so Cho must have left that dorm immediately after the shooting. If he went from there to his own dorm, which was elsewhere, he could have written a long note at that time.

According to the same Belleville report, Cho seems to have been a loner:

University spokesman Larry Hinker called Cho a "loner" and said university officials were having a hard time finding information about him.

Even the Koreans on campus seem not to have known him well:

Young-Hwan Kim, president of the Korean Campus Crusade for Christ on campus, said his group had tried repeatedly to get Cho involved in its activities at Virginia Tech. Cho rebuffed the invitations and declined to provide contact information, said Kim, 24, a graduate student in civil engineering.

"No one knew him," Kim said. "We had no contact throughout four years. It's amazing. We could not reach out to him."

From the information provided in this Yahoo! News report by Matt Apuzzo, "Va. Tech gunman writings raised concerns" (April 17, 2007), Cho seems to have wanted little contact with anyone:

Classmates . . . said that on the first day of an introduction to British literature class last year, the 30 or so English students went around and introduced themselves. When it was Cho's turn, he didn't speak.

The professor looked at the sign-in sheet and, where everyone else had written their names, Cho had written a question mark. "Is your name, 'Question mark?'" classmate Julie Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.

Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself for being anonymous. "He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked," Poole said.

"We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole said.

Cho has left behind a lot of question marks.

One question is what he meant by writing, in red ink, the expression "Ismail Ax" on one of his arms (presumably his left forearm if he was righthanded). Two sorts of speculation have emerged -- the literary and the religious.

A certain "Ray F." has suggested to Hot Air that the reference might be to a character in a story by James Fenimore Cooper:

You probably already know this, but in James Fennimore Cooper's story "The Prairie," the settler Ishmael Bush, who is attempting to escape from civilization, sets out across the prairie with two key tools, a gun and an axe. Each has a symbolic meaning. The axe -- which can either kill or provide shelter -- stands for both creation and destruction. Given that the VT killer was an English major, might this be the likely meaning of the words on his arm? Just my two cents.

But Boing Boing reports Daniel J. Geduld's tentative suggestion of the main character in the book Ishmael by E.D.E.N. Southworth, the 'relevant' passage being this one:

But there, my dear! that boy has slipped out, and is cutting the wood; I'll go and do it for him," said Reuben, as the sound of Ishmael's ax fell upon his ears.

Hannah arose and followed Gray to the door, and there before it stood Ishmael, chopping away at random, upon the pile of wood, his cheeks flushed with fever and his eyes wild with excitement.

Since Cho was an English major, who knows? Maybe he did identify with some Ishmael character. If so, why not the famous "Ishmael" in Herman Melville's Moby Dick. That character probably used an axe somewhere in that epic story.

But I don't think that any of these suggestions are likely, for Cho -- being an English major -- would probably not have altered the spelling of "Ishmael" to the Muslim spelling "Ismail." The spelling "Ismail" suggests a different source, and this is where the religious speculation pops up. The same Boing Boing report notes a suggestion by a reader, William McEwan, who points to a possible link to an Islamic story about Ibrahim (Muslim name for Abraham):

He left his father after he lost hope to convert him to the right path, and directed his efforts towards the people of the town, but they rejected his call and threatened him. By Allah, he said, I shall plot a plan to destroy their idols. He knew that a big celebration was coming soon, where everybody would leave town for a big feast on the riverbank. After making sure that nobody was left in town, Ibrahim went towards the temple armed with an ax. Statues of all shapes and sizes were sitting there adorned with decorations. Plates of food were offered to them, but the food was untouched. "Well, why don't you eat? The food is getting cold." He said to the statues, joking; then with his axe he destroyed all the statues except one, the biggest of them. He hung the ax around its neck and left.

The connection here is that Ibrahim was the father of Ismail, and his moral fervor in destroying the statues might reflect Cho's 'moral' fervor in condemning his fellow students, for the note left behind in his dorm room condemned "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" at the university.

But I don't think that this Islamic story is likely as a reference either, for the axe is not Ismail's but Ibrahim's. And since we're on the topic, I very strongly doubt that Cho has anything to do with Islam, despite the Muslim name "Ismail" in the expression "Ismail Ax."

The question mark remains.

UPDATE 1: My Korean wife informs me that in Korean culture, writing one's name in red ink is believed to bring bad luck.

UPDATE 2: On the package that Cho sent to NBC's New York headquarters, the return address had the name "A. Ishmael," which increases the likelihood that Cho was referring to James Fennimore Cooper's story "The Prairie," with its main character, Ishmael Bush, and his axe (and also further increases the likelihood that this this massacre has nothing to do with Islam).