It is usual to read our common perception of the sea refering to archetypal figures. However this article aims at suggesting that different cultures produce different patterns: in the French perception of the sea, for instance, we can outline the predominant feature of an empty and external space, bounding inhabited world from outside (according to a pattern of "closed territories"). On the contrary, the Anglo-Saxon conception evokes the structure of a network: lines running over the opposition between sea and land, carrying throughout the whole world the values of civilization and human activities. These two patterns have a leading role in shaping the views and perceptions in all fields, from economies to religion. Going on this assumption in this paper, we will consider two famous sea novels which give us an illustration of these paradigms: Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.