'Moby-Dick' and the mythology of oil

Moby-Dick is a mythic, epic tale, the central activity of which is the commercial enterprise of whaling. In its simplest from, it is the story of the conflict between Captain Ahab and the crew of the Pequod, and an uncommonly powerful and intelligent albino sperm whale named Moby Dick, a conflict bred by the whale's violent resistance to being captured, killed, and rendered into commercial products. The extent of the whaling industry of the time of Melville's writing had reached staggering proportions; the future of certain whale species and of the ecosystem they supported was in jeopardy. It is the assertion here that the author, Herman Melville, imbued with the ethos of his time, intended a certain investigation into the nature of industrialism and the growing exploitation of the ecosystems of the earth visible in the whaling business of his era, and that the mythos of the tale and the character of the whale represent elements of a totem of the conflict of humankind and the natural order.;Melville wrote Moby-Dick in 1851, at a time when whaling was a major industry for the United States and when whale oil was a significant product. By the mid-1870s whale oil had disappeared from active use, having been replaced by kerosene, which was made from petroleum. The growth of the economic society of the West from that time is very much a function of the growth of petroleum as an integral substance that touches virtually every aspect of our lives. The progress of the Petroleum Age very much follows from the mythos of Melville's tale and, in its continuing development, it could spawn a Pequod-like catastrophe for the larger ecosystems of the earth.;There are six parts to this analysis. The first is of the species of whale, to discern the majesty of this creature and to perceive its value as a centerpiece of Melville's work. The second is of Melville, to gain a sense of the man and of his consciousness as he lived and then told this tale. The third is of the work itself, Moby-Dick, to explore the ways in which the themes here emerge in the story. The fourth is of the progress of the Petroleum Age, from Melville's time to today, to discern the imbedded nature of oil and its attendant industrialism in our lives and the power and scientific insight that it has developed. The fifth concerns the conditions of the planet today after 150 years of the Petroleum Age.;The sixth and final part is to explore the nature of the mythos that drives the psyche in the Petroleum Age and to track its progress by way of the powerfully resonant themes that emanated from Melville's time and were imbued in his massively instructive work.