As I came to the end of "Benito Cereno" and especially while reading the transcription of the court case, I came to view the story as an inversion of the slave narrative. This story contrasts greatly with narratives like Douglass' in which the slaves are victims and shows of violence are the result of pent up anger and frustration and are therefore justified in the eyes of the reader. In this story, the black slaves are portrayed as the antagonists while our protagonist is Delano who, consciously or unconsciously, exhibits racism. The mutiny is entirely viewed as a negative event and the slaves' "crimes" are listed in detail on pages 1578-1579, including Francisco's suggestion to poison Delano's food and how Yau and Lecbe attached the skeleton to the bow. Additionally, on the final page what is done to Babo's corpse is related in gruesome detail: "The body was burned to ashes; but for many days, the head, that hive of subtlety, fixed on a pole in the Plaza, met, unabashed, the gaze of the whites." A head is usually put on a pole as a warning to others not to commit the same crimes. Additionally, the head is usually a prize or token of victory to the winning side of a battle. Although Babo's gaze meets the eyes of the whites, giving him this image of power and pride even in death, the awful circumstances and language of the author do not lead me to believe that Babo is at all considered a hero.
Here, Delano and his men are the heroes for saving Cereno, defeating the slave revolt, and returning the San Dominick to a white captain. In class, Onno mentioned this story as possibly being a critique of "northern white American complacency" regarding slavery, but I don't see this at all. The narrative seems racist and one-sided to me as there is no hint whatsoever that the mutiny of the slaves against their masters was justified, a hint which would be necessary in an anti-slavery story. Responding to the question regarding whether this story would be seen as racist in the 19th century, I think that's a matter of audience. While Delano is not actively racist, the portrayals of the Africans are definitely demeaning and would be seen as such by abolitionists in the 19th century. People who supported slavery might also see this as demeaning, but believe that that's accurate and the truth, rather than a racist caricature. I have no idea if Melville can be considered as a racist since I'm usually opposed to conflating the narrator with the author, but the narration is certainly racist if not recognized as wrong at the time.
I definitely agree with you here. I was shocked at the end of the story to discover that I had been so quick to declare the revolting slaves as the enemy– normally, stories of slave revolts are triumphant, and we, as modern readers, cheer for them. I wonder if, reading this in the present day, it might indicate how readily we sort people into "good" and "bad" just based on the perspective of the speaker in question– and what that means about modern racism, explicit or implicit.
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