Herman Melville’s story “Benito Cereno”
tells a story at which slaves take over a ship and put on an act to fool
Delano, who is a captain of another ship. One question that struck me when
reading this book was, is this a pro-slavery or anti-slavery story. Throughout
the story there are signs of both, but the conclusion that came to was that it
was more of a warning to other slave holders.
In
this story Captain Delano looks past many obvious signs that something is wrong
on the ship because he is too over trusting and ignorant to see them. When
Delano first boards the ship he sees three slaves sitting with two Spaniards holding
hatches and when one Spaniard misspoke, “one of the black boys [was and] seized
the knife, and, though called to forbear by one of the oakum-pickers, struck
the lad over the head, inflicting a gash from which blood flowed” (Melville
179). This confused Delano, for “‘had such a thing happened on board the bachelor’s delight, instant punishment
would have followed’” said Delano (179). This was an obvious sign of unbalance
of order (back then), but Delano shrugs it off liking nothing happened when
Cereno says, “that it was merely the sport of the lad” (179). Delano surprisingly
trusted the judgment of the captain he had just met.
Later
in the story Delano recognizes that the whites seemed to be the “shrewder race”
on the ship (201). He begins to question Cereno’s loyalty to his crew and begins
to think that his crew might “have dark secrets concerning [him], could [he] be
any way in complicity with the blacks?” (201). At this point you think that
Delano has finally caught on to what is going on in the ship but quickly
overlooks that ideal because he believed the blacks “were too stupid” to go
into cahoots with (201). Even with all these clear signs that the order of
power was compromised he was still too trustworthy of the slaves to see what
was happening.
I
believe that this story is a warning to other slave holders because Melville is
trying to say that if you keep mistreating your slaves there is a possibility that
they can come together and overtake you. I think that Melville uses Delano’s
character as a representation for how Americans thought back then about slaves.
He uses Babo in the story to show that blacks could become educated and they
were not as dumb as most slaveholders thought them to be. I believe that this
shows that is pro-slavery but in a sense that you need to treat the slaves as
humans and not as animals as they would.Herman Melville’s story “Benito Cereno”
tells a story at which slaves take over a ship and put on an act to fool
Delano, who is a captain of another ship. One question that struck me when
reading this book was, is this a pro-slavery or anti-slavery story. Throughout
the story there are signs of both, but the conclusion that came to was that it
was more of a warning to other slave holders.
Vince, I think that you are correct in thinking that this is a story about the dangers of slavery and could be considered an anti-slavery novel. As you said, I think that it is a warning to slave owners that there is a possibility that slaves can over throw their owners and reverse the roles of slaves and enslavers. I would consider it a cautionary tale because it was written in 1855, much near the time that Frederick Douglass’ narrative about his life as a slave was published. And now as I look at the two books together, it makes me think about the similarities that are within both. Yes Douglass’ is more about the life of a slave, but the fight scene the he describes where he wins power over Mr. Covey and is never whipped and now has gained the upper hand in the relationship is very similar to how the slaves upon the boat take over the ship and are in full power over the whites. Also I think that it can be seen as a representation of plantations and the entire institution of slavery. At this point there were far more black slaves in the southern colonies of America at the time than there were slave owners and overseers and this could happen if slaves were to rebel together. To me the boat can be seen as a plantation on its own, its own small community alone at sea, and the over throwing of the captain or owner could be done very easily if the slaves were put their heads together. So after I have looked closely into this novel compared to that of Frederick Douglass, I think that it is a cautionary, anti-slavery story that can be used to show the people who read it that not all slaves are dumb or stupid and with a plan, they might easily have the power to take over their owners and reverse the roles.
ReplyDeleteI like how at the beginning of the blog you wanted to decide whether or not “Benito Cereno” was pro-slavery or anti-slavery, and ultimately you concluded that it serves as a fair warning to all slave owners. I would also agree with Kyle’s statement above that the acts of the slaves on the ship resemble the acts of Frederick Douglass when he was involved in a fight with Mr. Covey. I would also like to compare this to Douglass’ narrative in the sense that slave were more intelligent than their owners believed them to be. This was first evident when Douglass began to realize that education was the key to freedom. Ultimately, I believe that this is an anti-slavery story, but not only to warn slave owners about their treatment of their slaves, but also to show slaves how powerful they can become in order to overthrow the slave owners in one way or another. This was one of the main purposes of the narrative of Frederick Douglass. I do not mean that the author is prompting slaves to violently overthrow their masters, but I am suggesting that the author is implying the slaves can have power over their masters if they work towards it, like Douglass did.
ReplyDelete