For the first four pages of Benito Cereno, Melville freely describes the San Dominick. Almost all of the first four pages is dedicated to the description of the boat. Because Melville possessed extensive knowledge of ships from his time on a whaler and as a member of the Navy, the descriptions of the ship can be assumed to be correct. Though Melville possessed the knowledge of a ship to describe a ship in such detail, would his readers have been so knowledgeable as well? No matter how extensively Melville described the San Dominick, I could not picture the ship because his terms and what he was describing are so foreign to me.
The description of the San Dominick is also interesting because though we meet Captain Amasa Delano and some slaves on board the ship, they are glossed over and are not given near as much descriptive attention as the ship. Melville also uses the ship to characterize the Captain. By not being frightened by the ship not having colors and sending it fish as a show of friendship, the Captain is portrayed as one not likely to make rash decisions, even though there may be at first glance, a reason to be concerned.
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