十九世紀捕鯨業盛行，美國為當時世界的捕鯨大國，捕鯨船數目與所捕獲的鯨都位居當時各國之首。美國東北岸大西洋捕鯨船停靠補給的城鎮亦因捕鯨業而備極繁榮。本文將探討美國小說家赫曼‧梅爾維爾在一八五一年出版的《白鯨記》裡，對十九世紀美國繁盛的捕鯨業的記述，以及梅爾維爾如何在這部巨著中細膩鋪陳出美國捕鯨業與隨捕鯨業發展出來的「鯨文化」。梅爾維爾的《白鯨記》將當時捕鯨船的獵鯨航程作為整部小說敘述裡虛構的情節與人物經歷的時空背景，在捕鯨船生手以實瑪利的敘述下，將捕鯨船裴圭特號與船長亞哈追逐白鯨的故事娓娓道來，並同時將當時捕鯨業的捕鯨過程與對於鯨類的各種描述與認知詳細地安插在虛構的情節之間。雖然十九世紀中葉之後，捕鯨業漸趨式微，但是經由梅爾維爾的《白鯨記》，十九世紀美國捕鯨業與鯨文化因而得以生動再現。

American whaling industry reached its peak in the mid-nineteenth century, with nearly seven hundred whaleships sailing at sea. Sailors and whalemen adjusted themselves to evolving economic needs and the capricious weather to hunt sperm whales, establishing a business that lightened up the world's civilization. This paper studies Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, a novel published in 1851 when the American whaling industry was at its peak and would soon meet its critical point of decline. The background stories of the whaling industry, together with its glorious past and perils, are discussed to illustrate how Melville's Moby-Dick became the most important novel in sea literature. Under the observation and the reflective ponderings of the homeless Ishmael, Captain Ahab, his crew and the whalemen on board the Pequod together struggled in a bloody, corporeal world of revenge and slaughter. Melville's Moby Dick not only surpasses other novels of the sea and fishery in its complexity and depth, but also preserves a serious concern for a possible ecological concomitance that cultivates a dream allowing all the creatures on earth and at sea to share together the bondage of life.