Previously, the ocean was viewed as a place of changeless space, and one without any history. “The Ocean Reader: Theory, Culture, Politics”, by Eric Paul Roorda, and ” Vast Expanses: A History of the Ocean”, by Helen M. Rodzadowski, discuss how the ocean is place of vast history, guaranteeing “that we see reflected back from its surface our fears and desires” (Rodzadowski, 12). Rather than simply land, the ocean is also at the center of human history.

Our past views of the ocean have often been two dimensional, horizontal. Events that occurred at sea were were often narrated as though the ocean was flat, similar to land, having only 2 dimensions instead of three. The two dimensional view changed with the First World War. Submarine warfare introduced the three dimensional and vertical perspective in global geopolitics (Rodzadowski). It is interesting that the ocean became viewed as three dimensional when it became a place useful for warfare, a battlefield. “Because the Ocean can’t be plowed, paved, or shaped in ways the eye is able to discern, it has seemed to be a constant, while the land has changed drastically over the centuries” (Roorda, 1). In many of the early stories we read, the mermaids/creatures come out of the sea, the unknown, to live on land. Rarely are the oceanic worlds explored in these stories.

Rodzadowski explains that “Dry land is the presumed norm. Even coasts and coastal dwellers have been viewed as marginal and exceptional, as have swamps, marshes, cays, reefs and other littoral areas that are neither entirely wet nor dry” (7). As we have previously discussed in class, cultures have been connected and using the ocean throughout history, though some of these histories have often been overlooked or ignored. I find it particularly interesting that “areas that are neither entirely wet nor dry” have been viewed as “marginal and exceptional”, since mermaids are of the same classification, neither wet or dry, neither human or fish, but a hybrid.

Rodzadowski also points out that “Humans make their appearance as part of nature, within the natural history of the planet rather than separate from it, and ocean-oriented activities of early hominids and of Homo sapiens appear to have played an important role in the evolution of our species” (9). Human view and relation to he ocean is ever changing, and varies between cultures. Through learning the history of the ocean, we can learn about ourselves. However, in brief studies of early hominids and homo sapiens, I have learned very little about their relation to the ocean and the role it played in the evolution of our species, this is something I’d like to learn more about.