Sunday, April 19, 2009

Benito Cerano by Herman Melville

Melville's "Benito Cereno" is interesting in its depiction of slavery.  In the end, it is unclear whether Melville's intention is to promote the idea that slaves were in fact lesser beings with violent tendencies or, perhaps more controversially, he was examining the possibility that slaves were equal beings- capable of enslaving their white owners with intelligence and cunning.  In this last observation it is important to note that the slaves utilized not only brute strength but their intellectual abilities (specifically Babo's abilities) to enslave the white officers.

Babo is portrayed as a loyal slave with an odd relationship to his "master", Cerano.  He appears, to Delano, to be doting and caring with Cerano.  In fact, Delano says he would like to purchase Babo for himself.  That Babo can fool Delano and his men is testament to the fact that he is capable of complex thought and planning.  Delano is also incredibly slow in unfolding the truth of the situation on Cerano's ship.  I believe Melville purposely drags the narrative to reinforce Delano's inability to discover the slave rebellion until Cerano literally lays it at his feet.  Melville seems to juxtapose Babo's cleverness with Delano's limited imagination and lagged abilities of discernment.  The traditional roles of slave and owner are reversed here.  

It's true, in the end Babo is sentenced to death and seemingly sentenced to justice.  Perhaps to the casual reader, Babo's resulting death is yet another fitting end to the fairy tale where the villain is eventually discovered and punished.  However, the last lines of Delano's conversation with Cerano present another possibility.  Cerano does not seem able to recover from his ordeal and he dies shortly after Babo's sentence is carried out.  When Delano questions his mental state- why he cannot recover, "what has caused this shadow over you"- Cerano replies, "the negro."  Yes, Melville seems to be saying that Babo has cruelly left his mark on Cerano but Melville also has Cerano suffer a similar end.  Perhaps Cerano's end was deserved as he is a villain himself.  Cerano suffers a cruel demise for his role as slave trader (an inhuman occupation) as Babo suffers a violent end for his inhuman behavior towards the sailors.  Whether Cerano's occupation was justified by the commonality of it and Babo's actions justified by the obvious horrors he was subjected to as a slave, a simple truth remains: they were both (as equal members of the human race) capable of inhuman behavior.  In the same vein, they were also both capable of heroic behavior- Cerano in his attempt to save the lives of Delano and his men and Babo in his leadership and attempt to save his own people from enslavement.  
- Irma Suarez

12 comments:

  1. These two readings assigned this week were difficult to get through. There was alot of description to get through. That is why I had a hard time with readings.

    As for Irma's blog, I relate this reading to Heart of Darkness for some reason.(I usually like to compare and contrast readings) I see the relation especially with Cerano's response to Delano. He says he can not recover because of "the negro" which can be taken in a couple ways.

    Captain Delano has the mentality of most masters. It is very hard to hear people talking about owning another human being. We see this especially when he is talking to Benito about employing all the blacks (p2416) A disturbing comment was when Melville says "Captain d/elano took to negores, no philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to New foundland dogs" (2435)

    As we read more and more into 1800 readings, I have noticed no real change except maybe how the slaves are becomeing a little more scheming.

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  2. Herman Melville’s story of “Benito Cereno,” I feel is kind of hard to follow. It starts out introducing us to Captain Delano and his crew who have just anchored at St Maria off the coast of Chili. He spies a ship out in the distance and decides to take some of his crew to go out and explore it because the ship beard no flags. The crew on the ship is odd to him because it consists entirely of one captain and a bunch of slaves. As it turns out it was a ship that had been transporting slaves from Buenos Ayres, where a disease (which was not uncommon) took hold of the people aboard the ship, killing many slaves and all of the Spanish crew members with the exception of the captain, Don Benito. As he tries to tell us this story he keeps fainting and having periods of delusion, which is inferred to the traumatic experience of watching all of his crew members die before him. I feel that it is easy to get lost in the beginning of this story because there is barely any dialogue and when there is the dialogue even feels like description because it is also telling a story. The paragraphs are extremely long which makes this story feel even longer. Another thing that is interesting is that Don Benito befriends a slave called Babo and seems to only show emotion to him. That kind of thing was uncommon in those days because if a white person was friends with a slave it was a lot more then frowned upon. I like the way that their relationship is because Don Benito seems like at this stage he is solely dependent on Babo and I feel that that is interesting to see, but at the same time it shows that the captain really doesn’t seem to have much authority on board his ship. Don Benito seems to be an odd character, constantly being extremely vague and just overall like he is keeping secrets from Captain Delano. Actually the more I read the story, the weirder and more confusing it seems to get. There is all of this thought in Captain Delano’s head about some kind of a conspiracy going on, on Benito’s ship and at times it becomes a little difficult to separate Delano’s thoughts from the actual story itself. Overall, I feel that this story kind of drags a bit and is so full of detail that at times I felt myself rereading parts from the beginning because I felt myself forgetting them.

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  3. Irma's reading really seems to fit with what's going on in "Benito Cereno" -- both Cereno and Babo enslave and grossly mistreat human beings; both meet with an ignominous fate. The patently prejudiced Delano, while emerging physically unscathed, is protrayed as a man and a narrator of unreliable judgement, and multiply unfit to lead. Moreover, it is intelligent Babo who masterfully governs the story's direction, and succeeds in confounding the Spaniards and Americans.

    Is it possible that Melville is a true champion of human liberty and freedom? For every cruelty is punished, regardless of perceived race. Despite Delano's racism, he never seems to act upon it and though uninclined to treat colored people in an inferior manner, is fine with treating them equally, as in his acquiescence regarding the distribution of his water and food. Futher, he is able to discern goodness in one and all, for example recognizing the loyalty of the slave Babo, the happiness of the colored mothers, and the seamanship of the colored people in navigating a ship. Though biased, Delano is able to rise nominally above his racism, and is consequently esteemed the hero.

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  4. First of all, for Herman Melville to publish "Benito Cereno" in 1855 is in itself extraordinary, considering that there was such a political turmoil over slavery and the issues surrounding the subject matter during that time. It certainly deals outright with the subject of racism and slavery and the difficult relationship between the blacks and whites.
    Melville certainly keeps the reader in suspense with an ironic twist, as Captain Delano boards a ship where blacks slaves are walking about and seem to have some sort of control, almost like a fairy tale. Captain Delano tries to sort out all his suspicions, but this seems to be done in a rather slow manner in order to keep the reader in constant suspense. Could Captain Delano's mind be so slow as not have seen that there was something seriously wrong earlier as all these strange incidents are piling up. Delano is obviously too trusting, and that is not how a captain of a ship should be. In this way, Melville cleverly gives the reader the opportunity to figure out by themselves what is really happening, without waiting for Captain Delano to give the answers. Considering the cruelty of slavery at the time, how many captains would stand to watch any blacks attack white men and not do anything? Even though Delano scuffs off any doubts by saying "This is a stange craft, a strange history and strange folks" he goes on to think about many more instances of unusual behavior.(2431)
    In the many stories written about black slavery "Benito Cereno" is unique. It deals with the possibility of slaves having the possibility of freeing themselves not just through violent behavior but through their intelligence, as Babo wittingly has Captain Delano fooled for quite some time. After all, the slaves are walking all over the deck without chains. Delano even begins to suspect Cereno as trying to take over Delano's own ship.
    The slaves, including Babo, their leader, appear to be savages. However, under the circumstances that they are fighting for their survival, and their only way of doing this is by taking over the ship. In "Benito Cereno" everyone is a savage. Captain Cereno is a savage himself for treating the Blacks as slaves in the first place. The manner in which Babo is killed with his head cut off first and hung on a pole is done in a savage way.
    Even Delano felt that Blacks are meant to be slaves and should live like that.
    Through "Bennito Cerano" Melville possibly tries to express his own feelings about the way Blacks were treated and how he is opposed to slavery.
    Eva Rosengarten

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  5. Captain Delano also many times called “the American” was so much Naïve. I couldn’t believe all the plots that were going on in his mind. At some point in the story he come to the idea that Don Benito is plotting against him and that the Negros were trying to tell him of such plots. The reading for me at some point was difficult to follow when the author when on describing a scene. The dialogues on the other hand were very easy to follow. Also, I found rather curious how Melville would make such regards as “that’s the way the American thinks, or how American such things were.

    Vanessa Martinez

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  6. I could not determine if this was an antislavery or proslavery reading. In a way the story gives power to the black slaves of the ship San Dominick, but at the same time it portrays them as malignant figures. This is seen when two black slaves push a sailor to the ground and are not punished by Cereno, and also when Babo cuts Cereno with a razor. Babo’s sneaky and violent side is illustrated as he uses Cereno as a puppet with the intent to take over Delano’s ship. Babo, who was Cereno’s black servant, was the mastermind behind the entire plan orchestrating a clever act and strategy to attain their freedom. In this sense, the black slaves can also be seen as figures fighting for their freedom at any cost; they are liberty seekers. Therefore it is difficult to determine a precise conclusion on the story’s intent.

    The back and forth whispering between Cereno and Babo did not have an impact on Delano’s thoughts as I thought it would have. Delano seemed to be a little naïve as he overlooked many suspicious incidents on the ship. I’m not sure if this is meant to empower Babo and the other black slaves, or if this just shows that Cereno and Delano are both weak leaders which fall to the clever scheme of the slaves.

    Rex De Asis

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  7. “Benito Cerano” is a powerful piece about slavery. Like Melville there was and still are a Great number of people that speak of slavery in an unclear way. At times you feel Melville is stating that slavery isn’t naturally wrong because the slaves are less than. Regarding equality, one might get the impression that slaves have their own right, being human. We see that master Cerano has a certain relationship with one of his slaves. When one is a master, we initially understand that he is in charge and is listened to. When one is a slave we understand that the slave is not acknowledged as an equal or so much as a real person. Bebo is the slave close to his master, who gets sentenced to death. Cerano can’t seem to move on and overcome this tragedy. This piece of literature is full of twists and turns that have you thinking many ways. Bebo and Cerano could have accomplished other things in their lives, but then again there lives were already planned out for them. It is important to remember the option to change was not in their plan.

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  8. In Irma's responce to Melville she states to possiblilities as to what he is saying. She sais he could either be demoralising the slave,or perhaps equifying them with. I feel he is stating the latter, he is emplifyign them as equals. This message is not clear and upfront but rather hidden perhaps to avoid andy sridicule whcih was inevitable of this time.

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  9. It is true that Benito Cereno depicts the slavery trade in South America, and also the loyalty and servitude of African slaves. Those two strong point depicts the general belief that preserves the status quo of slavery, expltation and submission; that was not only common to Africans but Native Americans around hose regions, especially around Peru, with its capital Lima.
    Slaves were spreaded all around the world, bu in this particular case captain Cereno was transporting slaves to Lima, Peru. From Lima were transported to the south, it is were the plantations were, and where the slaves work in the farming. This essay depicts all the intrincacies of slavery, that was not an easy trade, but going around the southermost part of South Smerica with frozen temperatures it is unimaginable, because they were traveling near the South Pole.

    Ysidoro

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  10. The first instance where I thought, "waittt, what is going on?" was when one of the black boys hit one of the white boys over the head with a knife causing the boy to bleed. Even though I thought it was strange; I didn’t necessarily understand what was going on. Captain Delano, on the other hand, should have understood! I was shocked that Captain Delano didn't pick up any of the hints from that point on: Benito being pale… giving Delano “half-lunatic looks”. I think it's easier for us to read this now and get caught up in the story, but how Delano fell for all of this was a little weird.
    I have the same question lingering in my mind as to whether this story is anti or pro slavery. I couldn’t agree more with Yehoshua on Delano, and how he rises above racism and treats all equally. With that being said, I would like to know what the exact message of this story is. Was the author trying to say whites were capable of treating all equally,as we saw with Delano, but the blacks weren't? OF course, that wouldn’t make sense to me.
    I’m just curious to know the meaning behind painting a white captain as a gullible man who is capable of treating blacks as he would whites, and painting the blacks as sneaky and violent. This could have also been a strong message as to why slavery was a horrible thing. How the slaves would go to any lengths to gain their freedom. ??I'm not sure.

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  11. This was quite an interesting read. I agree with what was stated in the responses; Delano is not very perceptive of what was going on around him. I think Melville made his character as such an unaware person to show that he viewed blacks and whites equally. It was puzzling to him to see how the blacks on board treated the white people on the ship, yet he wasn't too forceful when questioning why they were doing so. I can't really see him as a hero; he's come on board to help, but he behaves more like a guest meeting a friend than a rescuer.
    Babo is a fascinating character. He was so well disguised as a servant; however, I felt something was amiss. He acted as if he was a faithful sdervant, but even his suggestions to the captain seemed to be hidden commands, almost as if Cereno was hypnotized. At the end we find out why Cereno behaved in the way he did. Babo was a clever man to be able to lead the revolt in the way he did.

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  12. I feel that Melville’s work encompasses the collective and transforming ideas of slavery and the differing views on African Americans in early America. Captain Delano seems to represent the body of individuals that wish to abolish slavery, while Benito Cereno represents the body of individuals that wish to maintain the status quo. Delano, based on his observations of Benito’s servant writes, “a master need be on no stiffly superior terms with, but may treat with familiar trust; less a servant than a devoted companion” (2410). This is a thought he conveys that is pertaining interactions of master to the servant. At the same time, Delano’s seems to be caught in the middle of two extremes, one being accepting the Negroes as equals, and the other seeing them as subordinate. Nonetheless, throughout Delano’s journey on the ship, he observed the tendencies that called for the abolition of slavery, and equality of races. But Delano’s demeanor was one that called for caution, and the tensions regarding the race’s are exemplified when he writes, “But if the whites had dark secrets concerning Don Benito, could then Don Benito be any way in complicity with the blacks” and “Besides, who ever heard of a white so far a renegade as to apostatize from his very species almost, by leaguing in against it with negroes” (2428). Here we see the Negroes depicted as a separate species, and we see a pervading view of the time, it being, that taking sides with the Negroes will be something going against faith. For the most part, the reading was interesting, and the suspense was established well.

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