Benito Cereno
When Herman Melville wrote "Benito Cereno" he was undoubtedly influenced by the way of the times. In 1855, when the story was first printed, slave owners had but one fear, that their slaves would revolt against them. Whether on America's southern plantations or a slave trading ship off the coast of Chile, the blacks often out numbered the whites. Perhaps it was this fear that drove Melville to write this story the way that he did. For if he wrote a story about slaves revolting and glorified the slaves, as was done in Amistad, there is no doubt that Melville would have been shunned by the slave owners of America. Also, as with Amistad, this story is based on actual events from the early nineteenth century, so Melville had documentation as to what had supposedly happened. In Benito Cereno, Melville portrays the blacks as the "bad-guys", when the fault really lies on the whites. Although the blacks actions are warranted in this story, either due to the sources he had to write from, when it was written, or his own personal views, Melville writes numerous reasons we should see them as savages.Having written the book from court depositions, the information Melville was given might have been quite
Altschuler makes a good point in saying this because the San Dominick has been badly tattered by the elements, and is both out of food and water. So it is not decisive that the blacks were trying to rob the San Dominick, it is more likely they were simply trying to survive. After the slaves have obtained the San Dominick and have navigated it back to port with the help of the remaining whites, they seek to overtake the Bachelor's Delight. Melville uses this to further emphasize the fact that the slaves are malicious and just want to pillage and kill. He tries to portray Delano as a good-hearted character that is trying to do nothing more than help a troubled ship. Then Babo enters the novelia and appears to want nothing more than the Bachelor's Delight, and any riches aboard. Glenn C. Altschuler offers a different explanation for the blacks desire for this new ship. He proposed the following alternative motive for the blacks: Is it possible that Babo sought to commandeer the Bachelor's Delight because it was more seaworthy and better provisioned than the San Dominick and could better transport the blacks to Senegal? Is it possible that Babo feared that the captain might eventually discover the truth and pursue him? Given the possibilities, then, it may be that the robbery and plunder, if motives at all, were subsidiary motives. ( 297) In summery, while Melville may not have meant to make the slaves out to be the bad guys, he certainly did not make any apparent attempt to balance out the fault between the white slave owners and the black slaves. Due to the incomplete court depositions, white male narrator, Melville's fear of the powerful slave owners, the time period in which the events happened and the time period in which the book was written, the short novel "Benito Cereno" becomes a literary bash against the blacks. There are many differences between the people who read this Novelia one hundred and fifty years ago, and today, especially as far as their views on slavery. Whatever reasons Melville had, the story was written to keep the slaves in their place, and it was finger after finger of blame pointed at the slaves, when it should have been the other way around. Melville was given this biased documentation of the actual events, however he also elaborated even further upon those. He took the already tainted words of the court transcription and added more elaborations to them. On the subject of Melvill
Some common words found in the essay are:
San Dominick, Benito Cereno, Cereno Delano, Captain Delano, Cereno Melville, Negroes Teutonic, Voyages Travels, Africa English, Delight Melville, Senegal Babo, san dominick, slave owners, bachelor's delight, benito cereno, blacks san dominick, nineteenth century, head stick, babo's head, makes blacks, actual events, babo's head stick, helping master,
Approximate Word count = 1645
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
