Reading Moby-Dick was an interesting experience.  It’s clearly an old book full of so much description it makes me want to die, but it explored some themes that were fascinating to me.  The book opens up with one of the most famed lines in written history – “Call me Ishmael” – and from there our observant narrator takes us forth on one of the greatest, most tragic journeys ever written.

That first chapter for me holds more water than the rest of the book.  And that’s in more sense than one.  I love it because it takes about the inexplicable draw of the sea.  There’s something about the ocean that just calls us to it.  We love beaches, rocky shores, and long pondering walks about them.  Something about seeing an infinite stretch of ever rolling water brings peace and guidance to our souls.  Ishmael felt no differently.

I love the ocean and I too feel like Ishmael.  To be near the sea without regularly visiting it seems terrible to me.  Give me a day at the beach and I’ll be happy for quite some time!

But Moby-Dick goes beyond veneration of the sea.  It glorifies the whale, and if you know me, you know I love that.  There are several chapters detailing the magnificence of the whale, and although many of them are inaccurate due to the lack of knowledge at the time the novel was written, they still convey the greatness of these creatures.

I find our relationship with whales interesting.  I actually wrote a paper for my Environmental Humanities class on the subject.  It seems as we – human society as a whole – have come closer to true environmental awareness, our relationships with cetaceans have changed as well to be reflective of our environmental ethic.  If you’d like to read that paper, please click here, if not keep reading.

Several chapters of the novel are written in defense of whaling, its glories and virtues.  And reading this book from the whaler’s point of view I can understand it a bit better (though I still don’t agree).  Ishmael tells us that there is something to defeating the largest animals to have ever lived.  And he also points out that what happened to the American Bison could never happen to the great Leviathans of the sea.  In that time, a whaling ship would feel immensely proud to have taken 48 whales in a four-year period.  If only Melville could see what would happen less than a century later.

As much as I love the things about the book that I’ve detailed here, they are not the main themes of the book.  This classic novel mostly focuses on the fragility of life and the destructive forces of rage and revenge.

 Captain Ahab takes center stage in the lesson on revenge.  After having lost his leg in a previous battle with the white whale, he has become obsessed with its death.  So much so, that he is willing to sacrifice the life of every person aboard the Pequod. 

 This is the research paper I wrote for my Environmental Humanities class.  Don't steal it.  Plagiarizing is lame and illegal.

            I was wet, cold, and briny.  But I had never been so ecstatic in all of my short life.  It was my first trip to SeaWorld and at eight years old I thought I was in heaven.  With my nose pressed up to the glass and my little body shivering, I watched the graceful movements of a mysterious five-ton animal, filled with an awe that is still captivating me to this day.  Wave after wave of cold, salty reality crashed onto me in futile attempts to disengage me from my mesmerized trance.  There was something about this animal that defines me - something that was and still is speaking to my soul – and I love every moment of it.  The magnetism of cetaceans is not limited to my experiences alone however.  Whales have played important roles in cultural and environmental history because of this connection.  Western responses to whales as demonstrated in literature and film are reflective of the evolution of societal environmental ethics throughout history.  The biblical account of Jonah, Melville’s classic novel Moby-Dick, as well as the films Free Willy and The Cove each illustrate the  environmental ethics of their times in their depictions of  the whale.

            Early responses to nature were highly antagonistic and Jonah’s experience with the great fish is certainly reflective of this mode of engagement.  Biblical encounters with the environment are primarily punishment oriented.  Adam and Eve are kicked out of Eden for their transgression and the Children of Israel are forced to wander in the wilderness for forty years before finding their promised land.  Jonah’s experiences are no different.  Recall that he is commanded of the Lord to preach unto the people in Nineveh, but he “rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:3).  A storm rises, Jonah confesses and is cast into the sea where he meets a great fish that had been prepared by the Lord.  His three days of punishment in the whale’s belly offer him an opportunity for prayer and redemption.  Yael Shemesh, elaborating on these functions of the whale, explains, “The fish serves both as a means to punish the prophet, who, trying to evade his mission, finds himself trapped helplessly in its bowels for three days, and as a “life raft” that saves him from drowning” (8-9).  Nature, as embodied by the whale, serves as an instrument of deity to be used for means of punishment and refinement.  Man is removed from nature.  It is above him and directed by supernatural force.   Therefore his interaction with it comes with disobedience to deity and the consequential suffering that results.  Nature has the potential for salvation but the risk of destruction.

            This removal from and apprehension towards the environment characteristic of biblical interactions with nature is illustrated in the account given to us by the author of Jonah.  The lack of detail surrounding this creature adds mystery and fear to the unknown.  The account simply tells us that the beast was a “great fish” capable of swallowing a man whole.  The language used implies a great sea monster of some kind.  The word ‘leviathan’ would eventually be applied to cetaceans though its original meaning was that of a sea monster.  People did not encounter whales often, and when they did, it had to be frightening.  The sea and nature as extensions and reflections of human responses to the whale in this work are also terrifying.  In examining the fear these creatures and their environment generates, Shemesh continues, “It is easy to understand the emergence of the ancient myths (which left their traces in the Bible as well) that portray the sea and the monsters to which it is home as a primordial force that wages war against the celestial god(s)” (12).  While the whale serves as a function of punishment through nature by deity, it also serves as an antagonist to the good and godly.  Nature in the Book of Jonah is something to be feared and respected because any other interaction with it results in suffering and punishment.

            By the time Melville was writing his famous novel Moby-Dick however, society had undergone several important transformations.  Colonialism and industrialization were at their peak.  Nature and the environment were no longer ominous and terrifying – they had become resources.  They were tangible, usable, and conquerable.  Martin Heidegger in his essay “The Question Concerning Technology” explores this phenomenon as natural wonders become “standing reserves”.  He relates the damming of the Rhine for hydroelectric power and then remarks, “What the river is now, namely, a water-power supplier, drives from the essence of the power station.”  In becoming this standing reserve of power the Rhine loses its essence as a river and transforms into a resource.  Heidegger continues, “But, it will be replied, the Rhine is still a river in the landscape, is it not?  Perhaps.  But how?  In no other way than as an object on call for inspection by a tour group” (321).  Western interaction with nature at this point in time was primarily commodity oriented.  Trees became wood, ships, and conquest.  Animals became labor, food and clothing.  Whales became meat and oil.  We saw the world through market-driven eyes and it was ours for the taking.

            The biological classifications and constructs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries further highlight this categorization of nature as goods.  Perhaps the most famous of such classification systems was created by Carolus Linnaeus.  In his Systema Naturae, he divides the environment into the “three kingdoms of nature: viz. the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms” based on perceived relationships due only to common morphology and use (19).  His work continues as he discusses the consumption of these natural bodies: “All that is useful to man originates from these natural objects; hence the industry of mining or metallurgy; plant-industry or agriculture and horticulture; animal husbandry, hunting, and fishing” (19).  This tendency to commodify and categorize the natural world makes its way into Moby-Dick as well.  Several of the chapters in the novel take a semi-scientific approach to whaling.  The first of these titled “Cetology” explains the method Ishmael uses “in analyzing the whale and establishes an arbitrary standard of classification” as he places the whales under the headings of Folio, Octavo, and Duodecimo – terms used in comparing the size of a book.  J. A. Ward in his discussion on the role these cetological chapters play in the novel points out that here, Melville’s tone “roundly ridicules his own attempts at a scientific account of the whale” (176).  His mockery directed at the scientific approach and arbitrary classifications of nature emphasizes the arbitrariness of the scientific practices of the day.   The classifications, while satirical of Linnaean systems, are still based on the various potential of each whale for whaling and profit.  Even the descriptions of the exceptional white whale – “a murderous monster” with “unexampled intelligent malignity” – focus on Ahab’s prize of revenge (Melville, 220-225).  To everyone else aboard the Pequod, whales were just whalebone and oil. 

            Moby-Dick does more than just illustrate the commodification of whales brought on by industrialization however.  It accentuates the ethic that nature is to be conquered and that such conquest is not only desirable, it is honorable.  Chapter XXIV, The Advocate is a defense of whaling and a proponent of its glory and honor.  Ishmael states that if one day he is said to be found in great accord, “then here I prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard” (Melville, 146).  His designation of the chapter as an advocate is reflective of the changing views towards whaling.  Philip Armstrong commenting on the shifting phenomenon of the whaler explains, “The whaleman stood with one foot on either side of these many faultlines. He was praised as a harbinger of American values and vilified for his immoral relationship with the "innocent savages" of the Pacific.  He was both a romantic adventurer into wild space and a prototype of the industrial laborer, farmer, and meat processor” (1040).  Whaling had come to be the human triumph over nature and the defeat of the Leviathan.  If we could conquer and manage these the greatest of beasts, surely there was nothing outside of human reach. 

As environmentalism was embraced by popular culture, whales served as one of the most prominent emblems for environmental protection.  The film Free Willy captures this relationship with popular culture, casting whalers and greed as villains while exalting the whale as hero.  Diane Freedman in an analysis of Free Willy points out that, “The movie's opening vignettes are nearly sepia-toned scenes of modern whalers / wild poachers (called later by its hired keeper "slimeball whale catchers") who look and sound much like their 19th-century counterparts, especially off in the dusky distance at sea—in a wooden boat with the name "Pequod," in fact, painted in yellow on its white and red bow”   (92). From the very beginning of the film, poaching and whaling are directly associated with cetacean captivity and suffering, through the cleverly orchestrated allusion to the ship in Melville’s book.  Even the lighting of the film casts a shadow of depravity onto the modern whalers. The whale Willy clearly is the main hero of the film, but his villain here is not just those who catch him.  Rather it is “whale-owner Diehl's monetary hopes and greed” (Freedman, 92).  Industrialization still rears its head, but this time it is far from the glories it enjoyed in Moby-Dick as it takes the role of villain in this beloved childhood classic. 

Free Willy serves more than environmental causes however, and as it does so the film connects with a broader audience that gives more credence to environmentalism and heightens the whale’s power as one of its primary symbols.  The heroes of Free Willy are Willy the whale, Randalph the Haida caretaker, Ray the female trainer, and Jesse the juvenile delinquent.  Their primary opponent is Diehl – the white male owner of the facility – who is willing to sacrifice Willy’s life for money.  Freedman argues that the films power lies in the fact that these “Four marginalized characters—the native, the female, the young / criminal (an orphan, even), and an animal—ask viewers to imagine a new order has come or is coming, one that respects nature and ways and traditions not the White Man's own” (93).  Free Willy offers a chance for this new order where both the environment and marginalized sectors of society stand on equal footing with the traditional power of the white male.  Perhaps this is why the actor Keiko who played Willy became such an exceptionally powerful symbol for the environmental movement. 

The much publicized return of Keiko to his home in Icelandic waters functioned as a powerful adjuvant in the debate on whaling and even caused a rearrangement of environmental logic in the pro-whaling nation he was returned to.  The facilities Keiko was housed in were eerily similar to those his characters were depicted as suffering in.  Before long, his three-film career seemed to some as ludicrous and capital-based as the villainy he fought against in his films. As a result, he was trained for wilderness survival and eventually released back to his home waters off the coast of Iceland.  There was just one problem: Iceland is a whaling country with a strong anti-anti-whaling stance and an invented culture to go along with it.  Icelandic whaling culture developed from an increased prosperity in fishing industries and perceived cultural attacks in the form of US pressure in the International Whaling Commision and the sinking of two Icelandic whaling vessels by American activists.  Icelandic justification for whaling surrounds around the fact that the ‘mediagenic megafauna’ the whale had become was overly anthropomorphized and emotional beyond reason and evidence.   Anne Brydon, an anthropologist who was interested in the reaction Iceland would have towards the presence of such a culturally significant whale, traveled there to witness the spectacle and commented on the effect of his introduction: “Keiko's presence in national waters demanded from Icelanders the ideological effort to re-stabilize the rhetoric of reasonableness on which their identity within the cultural politics of whaling had relied but which their own mixed responses to this "special" whale had undermined” (234). Keiko’s presence forced hardened pro-whaling advocates to look at whales in a new light and some began to see him as a “thinking animal”.  Brydon continues that once this had happened, “Other cultural logics—that affective bonds could be formed with animals, that science (this time medical/veterinary rather than management biology) could act in support of an animal's welfare rather than that of the state—were mobilized, triggering public debate” (237).  Keiko’s roles in the Free Willy movies had clearly captured a wide audience that gave him powerful cultural clout – an influence that was strong enough to call the pervading logic of one of the few nations refusing to participate in the international whaling moratorium into question. 

The Cove functions in a similar manner as it plays on popular perceptions of whales, but it reveals that the environmental and anti-whaling movements have not yet succeeded in saving the planet – that diligence is going to be needed as environmental ravaging continues in the clandestine parts of the world.  Again the exposure of the darker sides of capitalism and industrialization with the emphasis on cetacean protection are the main focuses of the film.  This film brings attention to the connections between the attractive dolphinariums – an industry that externally seems to be environmentally friendly – and the brutal slaughter of captured dolphins in a hidden cove in Japan that the captive dolphin industry fuels.  The Cove focuses on the exposure of a secret industry – one that most of the Japanese people don’t know about – and the filming itself is done in a covert manner that further dramatizes both the problem and its cover-up.  Even the tag-line of the film “Shallow Water, Deep Secret” portrays a betrayal of the Japanese people because of such concealment (Psihoyos).  Since the dolphin’s role as a symbol for environmental protection and animal rights is ingrained enough in what is still a moderately whaling-friendly society, the city hides the truth about this small cove.  The film exploits both the cultural symbol of the anthropomorphized cetacean and the secrecy the city of Taiji and its fisherman require to prevent public outrage. The dramatic revelation of the brutal dolphin killings climatically concludes the film.  An attestation to the efficacy of the film was the difficult battle of the theatrical release of The Cove in Japanese theatres.  Media coverage of the film and the growing protests in Taiji were marginalized by mainstream news agencies.  Eventually though, the film found its way into Japanese theatres and as a result the hunting season highlighted therein started late, ended early, and was frequently interrupted the following year.  Yet again the cultural significance of the whale had proven a powerful force against environmental antagonists.  The film is a proponent of openness to environmental discourse suggesting that secrecy results in harm for both nature and mankind.

Throughout this exposition it has been my intention to illustrate the ways mankind’s view and treatment of cetaceans have mirrored the gradual evolution of environmental discourse over time.  The question I now pose is why?  Why do whales among all the other organisms on this planet uniquely capture and reflect our environmental ethics?  I think it begins with their mystery.  Cetaceans live in a world we cannot inhabit.  As a result their lives and their being are mystifying to us.  The aura surrounding these giant creatures initially was one of fear but since has transformed into reverence and awe.  Whales are intelligent creatures and this intelligence sets them apart from a great deal of the natural world.  They form complex social systems.  They speak and sing to each other in a manner that surpasses other forms of animal communication.  Essentially we see a great deal of ourselves in them.  The fish in Jonah and the great whale in Moby-Dick serve as fantastic monsters precisely because of their intelligence and size.  Any encounter with an animal such as that naturally becomes the stuff of legend.  Free Willy and the dolphins in The Cove tug on our heart-strings because their ability to respond and communicate reminds us of ourselves and we find ourselves forming those affective bonds.  Whales reflect our interactions with nature because they are unique animals – ones who are simultaneously reflective of our own experiences and remarkably alien at the same time.  It is exactly because of this connection between the human and the other that whales have become mirrors of our environmental ethics – a relationship they are likely to carry into the future if we continue to honor them as symbols of the environmental movement.

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