Modern Interpretation and Criticism

As a centerpiece of the ship, the try-works worked as the last step in converting whale oil into products meant for consumers. Thus, the chapter concerning the try-works represents industry as a whole. The cooking whale blubber is mentioned to look much like a smokestack over the water, and the boat resembles a floating factory. Essentially the boat is configured into an assembly line every single time a whale is captured.
In a review written by John McCurria of UCal San Diego, the author claims that Moby-Dick is a geopolitical representation of British imperialism through the practice of whaling. He writes, "Aboard the ship named after an exterminated Native American tribe are 30 men of African, European, Native American, Pacific Island and Asian descent, equal to the number of states in the federal union. All were enslaved under Ahab's proclaimed quest for freedom registered in his mad obsession with whiteness" (249). Ahab is essentially a slaveholder to all of the men on board the vessel, and can be seen to represent an agent of Native American genocide, transatlantic slave labor, and cultural imperialism.