Benito Cereno

A detailed Summary of Benito Cereno

Unlike any other creature that has ever existed, humans possess the unique tendency of desiring to see things in a light with which they are comfortable - the actual events that are taking place are thus often lost in the shadows of ignorance. Such is the case in Herman Melville's Benito Cereno, an account that more than adequately illustrates the delusions people are capable of when they are attempting to retain their calming sense of the world. Captain Amassa Delano serves not as a heroic savior of Spanish sailors, but as a projection of all the hypocrisies found in slavery; Melville specifically writes in third-person so as to keep the reader searching for the location of the strings on his puppet.

The point of view in this story is rather important as it pushes the reader to do their own sort of anti-slavery interpretation. Whereas Frederick Douglass's narrative is exceptionally explicit and forward, Melville relies on the reader's inner intuition, a technique that works magnificently when compounded with the ambiguity of the tale. Delano is the perfect character for the reader to focus on: he's a rich, white American, a decidedly Yankee captain and "a person of a singularly undistrustful good nature." Toss in a sh

One cannot help but compare Delano with Melville's own lawyer in Bartleby as both men rely heavily on a sense of their own guiltlessness. The confident, do-gooder world where Delano thinks he resides contrasts sharply with the fact that he is a supporter of the worst kind of human injustice - since he does not react against a system of slavery, he is a supporter of it. The inclusion of the deposition at the end not only cements this theory, but adds an ironic humor to the entire situation. When Delano sees the negresses he describes them as "unsophisticated leopardesses" and "loving as doves," statements that contrast dramatically with the later accounts of enraged demons ready to torture any of the whites. Furthermore, Delano is content to have restored the rebel slaves to their "rightful" place as property - many readers may also be satisfied that such an act took place as well - but the most important aspect is that Melville has recreated America's own Fugitive Slave Act thousands of miles away and set it in a tiny, controlled environment. Any reader of the time would be forced to recognize that by following along with Delano's contradicting beliefs and awkward realizations, they themselves have been ensnared in their own prejudices.

The final block that secures Delano into his igloo of racist bumbling comes about with a quick recap of Babo's actions. This clever slave employed the same techniques as white slave-owners, no more so than by dragging each Spaniard to the bones of Aranada and frightening them into cooperating. Much like white masters who merely beat, tortured or executed one slave so the others would act like cattle, Babo utilizes the same method in order to take control. He is properly vengeful, exacting, and shows malice, all signs that illustrate intelligence yet Delano never attempts to realize this. His inability to recognize such comes when Melville informs us that Cereno ends up broken in mind and spirit, that he never really becomes a man again once off the ship that imprisoned him. The irony escapes Delano is that slavery, even if only for a brief period, had done the same to a white captain that it does for black slaves. Babo's refusal to speak once he is

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Approximate Word count = 1496
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English