There Will Be Blood Analysis

The Juxtaposition of Oil and Religion in There Will Be Blood

In Paul Thomas Anderson 's There Will Be Blood (2007), pragmatic oilman Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) and fanatic preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) represent the colliding worldviews of profit-making and piety. At first, Plainview and Sunday are cordial, albeit tense. However, as the stakes escalate and conflict ensues, both characters realize their ideologies cannot coexist and begin to compete viciously for the hearts of Little Boston 's townsfolk. There Will Be Blood pits religion and greed in a winner-takes-all grudge match, but simultaneously doesn’t shy away from spotlighting their similarities.

Plainview symbolizes avarice and the pursuit of wealth – no matter the cost.

He is the one individual that stands in the way of Plainview 's relentless pursuit of wealth. While the film does culminate in Sunday 's demise and the substitution of piety with materialism, this does not suggest a change in the management of ideology. Covetousness and religion are fundamentally separate in their application but have many similarities in practice. For instance, Plainview refers to Sunday as a "false prophet" several times throughout the film. By the final scene, he kills Sunday and effectively replaces him as the new prophet, extolling the virtues of the now-ubiquitous American

The development of his first oil well is a religious experience – a sudden enlightenment of the previously benighted. It is at this point that Plainview begins his baptism in oil and becomes an oilman. This slow process of corruption is attempted to be undone by Sunday in his natural baptism as he forces Plainview to accept the truth that he has abandoned H.W. This attempted reversal is ultimately futile, as Plainview merely uses the baptism as the means to gain the rights to a pipeline. In the final scene of the film, he completely rejects this “false baptism” with his baptism in Sunday’s