North American Fiction and Film: Chapter 2
"Benito Cereno"
Captain Delano
"Benito Cereno" has been read in a variety of ways. At one level,
it has been read as a tragedy of "dim-witted" perception where
Captain Delano, like Don Benito, fails to read the signs around him, a failure
which has serious consequences. Captain Delano cannot conceive of the idea
that the "Negroes" are intelligent enough to stage a mutiny (Blackp;White
racism), so he interprets the signs of unrest and decay around him on the
San Dominick, Don Benito's ship, as evidence of Don Benito's Spanish origins
(inter-White racism) and of a failure of Don Benito's ability to perform
as master of his vessel. The narrative works through situational or dramatic
irony: that is, we as readers know more than Captain Delano does; though
puzzled no doubt by the events on the ship at first, we gradually begin
to see what Captain Delano does not.
In a sense, Captain Delano's dim-witted "blindness" is very similar
to the blindness which originally brought the Spaniards undone, first in
that they allowed the slaves the freedom of the ship, believing them to
be "tractable" (93), and second in that they, like Captain Delano,
failed to read the signs of rebellion brewing under their noses. In this,
they replicate Captain Delano's belief that the "Negroes" are
incapable of staging a mutiny, a belief which has tragic consequences.
A further irony is implied here. At the very end of the story, Don Benito,
who is more-or-less overwhelmed by his experiences and dying as a result
of them, muses with Captain Delano on the significance of the events. Captain
Delano, perhaps understandably, tries to down-play his own dim-wittedness
by blaming his over-generous nature for his over-sights. He recognises,
however, that had he been more "acute" it might have cost him
his life (102), for if he had understood what was going on, there is no
doubt that he would have fallen victim to the mutineers. Don Benito acknowledges
that "'malign machinations and deceptions impose'" themselves
on the innocent man, and that judging the conduct of another is difficult,
especially when the judge is not in a position to know the exact circumstances
of the person concerned. He concludes: "'Would that, in both respects,
it was so ever, and with all men'" (103).
Captain Delano responds by suggesting that Don Benito is "generalising,"
and then he makes some comments about the blue sky and bright sunshine.
We know at this point that Captain Delano has not learnt from the experience
even though Don Benito suggests that the sea and sky are capable of turning
over new leaves because they have no "'memory'." This failure
is emphasised when Captain Delano asks Don Benito what has cast this shadow
over him, thereby implying that he has none himself. Don Benito replies:
"'The Negro'" (103). The narrator notes that "There was no
more conversation that day."
Babo, the "Negro," meanwhile, is tried and executed, but he utters
no sound from the moment that Captain Delano overpowers him in the long
boat until his death. His head, like the body of Don Alexandro (which is
fixed to the bow of the San Dominick and under which is written "follow
your leader"), is fixed to a pole where he meets "unabashed, the
gazes of the whites" (104). What is the significance of this?
It is clear that what troubles Don Benito should also trouble us: Babo's
unfazed and silent stare of defiance. Not only do Don Benito's comments
about the difficulty of judging another and of being undeceived about "all
men" alert us to the notion that we judge Babo and the "Negroes"
without knowing their circumstances but they also reminds us that the horrors
committed in the name of mutiny on the San Dominick are those regularly
visited upon the whole Black race, not just in the act of making them slaves,
but also because this is done under the pretext of their "racial inferiority".
In other words, what happens on the San Dominick is an exemplification of
the moral: as ye sow, so shall ye reap.
In all this, the Americans, who believe themselves to be, as Captain Delano
does, leaders in a New World order (sound familiar?), are in danger of slavishly
(so to speak) replicating the sins of the Old World order (the Spanish were
renowned for their exploitation and harsh treatment of colonised nations)
by themselves owning slaves. "Benito Cereno" was first published
in 1855, which is prior to the American Civil War (which, at one level at
least, was about the South and slavery). Although the story does not provide
us with suggestions or solutions to these issues, that it leaves such questions
raised but unanswered, and in particular that Captain Delano still doesn't
get it, is an irony which readers cannot fail to grasp. We know that Captain
Delano will go away pompously reminding himself to be more careful next
time (nothing wrong with that) but without even thinking about the circumstances
which gave rise to the mutiny (brutality, exploitation, slavery). The irony,
then, is that as Captain Delano learns nothing, we who read the story ought
to learn much more. In this the story is, like "Bartleby", a cautionary
tale of self-blindness and self-deceit. Now let's look at some of the issues
raised here in more detail.
A tragedy of dim-witted perception
The story is told in third-person intimate narrative form-that is, the narrator
is not Captain Delano himself, but someone else. However, this narrator
"focalises" his narration as though it were limited, more-or-less,
to the thoughts and perceptions of Captain Delano. In other words, the narrator
limits his "omniscience" to one character, and then limits it
even further by restricting the commentary to the thoughts and perceptions
of Captain Delano as they occur to him. The effect of this technique is
that we are restricted in our knowledge to what Captain Delano sees, as
he sees it. We need to interpret the signs just as he does because the narrator
does not do this work for us.
At one level, this technique paves the way for the dramatic irony (i.e.
the opportunity we have for working out what's happening before Babo leaps
into the long-boat and gives the game away to Captain Delano).
At another level, this technique provides the narrator with the opportunity
of exploring the thought processes of Captain Delano as they occur, and
in particular, examining the various rationalisations he makes of the signs
he sees on the San Dominick. It is these rationalisations which become the
focus of the story-why does Captain Delano respond to the extremely unusual
circumstances (and he admits this himself) in the way that he does? why
does he continue to believe that things don't add up yet continue to deny
this? Because, as we have seen, he cannot conceive of the idea that the
"Negroes" are capable of staging a mutiny. In short, the narrative,
by using a dim-witted protagonist, enables us to examine the way his prejudices
affect his judgement thereby providing a mirror, as it were, for our own
racial prejudices.
Captain Delano's "singularly undistrustful
good nature"
Much is made in the narrative both by the narrator and by Captain Delano
himself of his "singularly undistrustful good nature" (37). The
implication is that Captain Delano is a trusting, good-hearted sort of fellow
who believes in his own ability to judge those around him and who requires
"repeated incentives" of evil before he will engage in "personal
alarms" or consent to believe that this or that person is bad. The
narrator does not say whether he thinks this is a good thing but leaves
the question for the reader to decide: "Whether, in view of what humanity
is capable, such a trait implies, along with a benevolent heart, more than
ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectual perception, may be left
to the wise to determine" (37-38).
What we have, then, is a story about a "radical innocent," a story
about someone whose determination to see goodness in everything is so strong
that he becomes a danger to himself and others. However, as the narrative
progresses, we begin to question Captain Delano's radical innocence, for
it appears that it does not apply to all things. For example, when he tries
to buy Babo from Don Benito (61), thinks that Whites are the "shrewder
race" and that the "Negroes" are "stupid" (65),
and compares "Negroes" fondly to Newfoundland dogs (73), we know
that the application of Captain Delano's goodness is selective and based
on his obvious prejudice that Whites are superior to the "Negroes".
The narrator, by pointedly drawing our attention to Captain Delano's alleged
innocence, is leaving the question of whether it is wise in our hands, but
he is also providing us with evidence to suggest that such a notion of goodness
is itself open to question.
The "doors of perception"
From the very beginning of the story, Captain Delano is faced with the problem
of trying to make sense of the signs around him and to respond appropriately.
The story makes it clear that this is easier said than done, particularly
when these signs seem strange or come from quarters out of the ordinary.
When his mate comes to inform him of the "strange sail" coming
into the bay where his ship, the Bachelor's Delight, is anchored, he comes
on deck to be faced with a grey day, not foggy but not clear either, and
a ship which uncharacteristically flies no colours (37).
The ship seems to be mantled in "vapors," and makes strange "manoeuvres"
and the Captain wonders if his perception of all this might not be a "deception
of the vapors." In this context, "vapors" clearly refers
to the fog-like moisture which partly obscures the ship, but it also has
the sense of hypochondria and hysteria which the Captain will discover in
Don Benito. The notion of deception suggests that things are not always
as they seem, which Delano recognises but fails to comprehend. This gloomy
atmosphere is heightened by the evocation these descriptions suggest of
a ghost ship-one which mysteriously sails about without a human crew, causing
mayhem or scaring the life out of "god-fearing" seamen, etc. In
a sense, the San Dominick turns out to be a sort of ghost ship ("The
ship seems unreal: these strange costumes, gestures, and faces but a shadowy
tableau just emerged from the deep, which directly must receive back what
it gave" 40).
Captain Delano's problem is that at the "doors of perception,"
to borrow a phrase from Aldous Huxley, nothing is certain, nothing is clear.
What one relies on is one's beliefs, one's training and one's reasoning,
which is what the Captain does, but this reliance only provides the illusion
of reality and certainty. Our view of the San Dominick, as it looms larger
and larger in the Captain's view, confirms this "doors of perception"
approach, for nothing about the San Dominick is what it seems or should
be.
For example, upon gaining "a less remote view" of the ship, it
seems "like a whitewashed monastery," and Captain Delano thinks
that what he sees is "nothing less than a shipload of monks" where
the "dark moving figures" look like "Black Friars pacing
the cloisters" (38-39). This image evokes the dark, brutal, repressive
forces of the Spanish Missionaries (who, by the way, used their Christianising
techniques to render allegedly "inferior" Black races more docile
and therefore more easily exploited by the Don Benito's of the world).
This image fades, and Captain Delano sees the ship in its "true character":
"a Spanish merchantman of the first class, carrying Negro slaves"
(39). The ship is in decline, however, though, like a "superannuated
Italian" palace, it retains only traces of its former glory. Claiming
this "true character" seems a bit hasty on Captain Delano's part,
for coming even closer, the Captain sees that the ship is not just in decline-it
suffers from "slovenly neglect" in that ropes and spars have been
neglected to the point where the keel of the ship reminds him of "ribs"
from "Ezeliel's Valley of Dry Bones" (39).
Although these images are no doubt apt, given what we later find out about
the ship, it is significant that he chooses imagery associated with the
decline of the Spanish Empire to augment his perceptual doubts. Rationality,
in other words, is not without its analogies and metaphors, and the outcomes
of the reasoning processes are as much a function of the particular analogies
and metaphors one chooses as they are of anything else.
The decline of the Spanish
The notion of decline being associated with Spain is a continual motif in
the story (for example, instead of seeing it as an instance of disrespect
which Don Benito would never sanction, the Captain is quite amused when
he later discovers him, whilst being shaved by Babo, using the Spanish flag
as a barber's rag; 74). No doubt America saw itself as in an ascendant trading
and military power and Spain as a fading Imperial one.
If America has its Statue of Liberty (given to it by the French in the previous
century) then the Spanish have a declining ship which has a mythological
sternpiece and a covered bow: the sternpiece is "intricately carved"
with various figures and "mythological or symbolical devices, uppermost
and central of which was a dark satyr [a Greek woodland deity in human form
with horse's ears and tail] in a mask holding his foot on the prostrate
neck of a writhing figure, likewise masked" (39); the bow has its figurehead
covered but underneath it are the words "follow your leader" in
chalk (which indicates that it was not part of the original structure but
recently and inexpertly added). We later discover that it is Don Alexandro's
body (skeleton) under the cover.
Much has been, and could be, made of these obvious symbols. It is significant
that having pointed them out, as it were, Captain Delano never thinks of
them again, which is more-or-less what we come to expect from him (that
is, if it doesn't make sense the first time, he forgets all about it unless
something happens to force him to reconsider it). Perhaps the symbolism
might read as follows: if you follow your leader (America following Spain
where Spain, in this case, stands in for Europe) in struggling to subdue
those different from yourself (other races represented by the "dark"
satyr) you will finish only in a struggle to the death (as the figures show)
but who will win is not necessarily a foregone conclusion (although the
figure in the ascendancy is a "dark" satyr, which suggests the
possibility of the sort of Black victory Captain Delano cannot contemplate,
both are masked).
Either way leads to death (Don Alexandro's skeleton under the bow cover)
and destruction (the events on the ship). Of course, had Captain Delano
worked all this out before he reached the San Dominick he would not have
set foot on the ship and the story, his perception of events, would not
have been told. As we have said, the powerful symbolism here could be read
in a number of ways, but the suggestion that America risks going the way
of the San Dominick if it follows the Spanish in its reliance on slavery
(thereby ignoring the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty in the same way
that Captain Delano ignores the symbols on the ship) is powerful and explicit.
For a full exploration of these issues, see Allan Moore Emery's article
"'Benito Cereno' and Manifest Destiny."
The story as allegory
In effect, then, the story of the San Dominick is told even before Captain
Delano sets foot on the ship, with the "dance of death" enacted
by Don Benito and Babo simply rehearsing the struggle of the two masked
figures in the sternpiece. The story is told a third time towards the end
of the story (for those who missed the clues in the first two accounts)
in the form of the declarations made by the various witnesses to Don José
in St Maria.
This third account is different in that it represents an account of justice
which concentrates on the supposed facts of the case, thereby ignoring any
motivations which might be attributed to the "Negroes" (i.e. it
is a sort of "what can you expect from these savages?" account,
with the underlying message being a warning to be on guard against further
excesses by enforcing discipline). In this way, this third version functions
as a kind of warning in itself-if you have read all three versions of the
story and all you can do is blame the victims then, like Captain Delano,
you have learned nothing.
This message is reinforced by Don Benito's suggestion that he cannot forget
the "Negro," Babo (discussed above), and neither, apparently,
should we. In this, we could say that the story is an allegory: that is,
it has meaning on the literal level (as a story about the "discovery"
of the mutiny), and on another level partially hidden behind its visible
or literal meaning (as a cautionary tale about how the excesses of slavery
will return to haunt the "masters").
The excesses of Spanish Catholicism
The imagery of the San Dominick as a monastery inhabited by frightening
"Black" friars could be read, allegorically, as an attack on the
excesses of Spanish Catholicism. From the perspective of a largely Protestant
America, Spain, with its inquisitions, Saints, martyrs, and "excessive"
religious ritual, seemed not only antiquated and in decline but also dubiously
prone to superstition. Whilst the New World of America saw itself as enlightened
in its commitment to rationality, it regarded the Old, here represented
by Spain, as trapped in the realm of the irrational.
In this, the story is an allegory with a double effect: having shown the
tragic results of the Old World view, it also shows that the New World view
of rationality is, unwittingly, in danger of repeating the mistakes of the
Old World, partially in its unreflective condemnation of the Old, and partially
in the form of a bigotry which, in its empathic failure (that is, its failure
to identify with the "fallen"), repeats the very mistakes it condemns.
This double effect is played out in the repeated allusions to the excesses
of Spanish Catholicism. For example, Babo, with his simple clothes, rope
belt and "depreciatory air", strikes Captain Delano, quite incongruously,
as " a begging friar of St. Francis" (48). Don Benito, by comparison,
is richly attired in the dress of a Spanish gentleman, which, as the Captain
notes, suggests that his dress is inconsistent with the "disorder"
around him (a pharisee when compared to Christ's simplicity). When Babo
ushers Don Benito into the cuddy for a "shave" in order to stop
him from giving too much away to the Captain, he is seated a chair which
resembles, in the Captain's eye, an "inquisitor's rack" (74),
and although the Captain does not realise it, the scene which follows with
him asking questions of Don Benito while Babo holds a razor to Don Benito's
throat also resembles a sort of inquisition.
The irony is, of course, that as with all inquisitions what the inquisitors
get is not the "truth" but conformity, only in this case the inquisitor
and the torturer are on different paths. When Captain Delano admits to Don
Benito that he finds his story slightly incredible, Babo cuts Don Benito
slightly as a warning and says: "See, master-you shook so-here's Babo's
first blood" (75). This, we find out later, is anything but the case.
However, Captain Delano, when he sees Babo coming from the cuddy, wailing,
with a cut on his cheek (no doubt put there himself for dramatic effect),
the Captain thinks: "Ah the slavery breeds ugly passions in man.-Poor
fellow!" (77). The Captain sees this as a sort of "love quarrel"
(whatever that might mean) between Don Benito and Babo, but his sympathies
are clearly with Babo.
Delano's rationalisations of his own "blindness"
The allegory is also played out very much through Captain Delano's attempted
rationalisations of his own "blindness." He appears to be doing
this a lot of the time, but there are two moments where he deliberately
stops, and like the good rationalist he is, weighs the evidence. In the
first of these, his "ugly misgivings" have gotten the better of
him and he feels "a ghostly dread of Don Benito" (58). The wind
has died, and the San Dominick, where the Captain has temporarily stationed
himself, is drifting away from his own ship.
Although he sees his doubts as nothing but "phantoms" which are
"delusive," he is beginning to believe that Don Benito might be
a pirate who has a diabolical scheme afoot to take the Bachelor's Delight
by stealth. He wonders whether Don Benito's story about how the San Dominick
came to be in such distress was "an invention" and whether he
had carefully drilled the crew in its "plot" (59). He thinks that
the Spanish crew may not have perished at all, and might be lurking in the
hold waiting their chance to "let loose their energies," like
"a slumbering volcano" (58).
Of course, all of this is apt imagery if applied to the "Negroes",
but totally inappropriate when applied to the (non-existent) Spanish crew.
His desperation culminates in his plea, "what was the truth?"
(59), and given that his answers, despite his careful rationalisations,
are very wide of the mark, we conclude that, New World or not, the Captain's
rationalisations have failed him. This is especially evident in his conclusion
that Don Benito was not fit to command ("Evidently, for the present
the man was not fit to be intrusted with the ship" (59)).
Similarly, during his second summary of events, he begins in fear and ends
in rationalising it by questioning Don Benito's credentials to command:
By way of keeping his mind out of mischief till the boat should
arrive, he tried to occupy it with turning over and over, in a purely speculative
sort of way, some lesser peculiarities of the captain and the crew. Among
others, four curious points recurred:
First, the affair of the Spanish lad assailed with a knife by the slave
boy; an act winked at by Don Benito. Second, the tyranny in Don Benito's
treatment of Atufal, the black, as if a child should lead a bull of the
Nile by the ring of his nose. Third, the trampling of the sailor by the
two Negroes, a piece of insolence passed over without so much as a reprimand.
Fourth, the cringing submission to their master of all the ship's underlings,
mostly blacks, as if by the latest inadvertence they feared to draw down
his despotic displeasure.
Coupling these points, they seemed somewhat contradictory. But what then,
thought Captain Delano, glancing towards his now nearing boat-what then?
Why, Don Benito is a very capricious commander. But he is not the first
of the sort I have seen, though it's true he rather exceeds any other. But
as a nation-continued he in his reveries-these Spaniards are all an odd
set; the very word Spaniard has a curious, conspirator, Guy-Fawkish twang
to it. And yet I dare say Spaniards in the main are as good folks as any
in Duxbury, Massachusetts. (68)
When the boat finally arrives from the Bachelor's Delight with water and
food, there is a crush on deck which the Captain interprets as a signal
to "massacre" himself and his crew. The oakum-pickers quell the
unrest, and Don Benito faints:
As he saw [Don Benito's] meager form in the act of recovering
itself from reclining in the servant's arms, into which the agitated invalid
had fallen, he could not but marvel at the panic by which himself had been
surprised, and the darting supposition that such a commander, who, upon
a legitimate occasion, so trivial too, as it now appeared, could lose all
self command, was, with energetic iniquity, going to bring about his murder.
(69)
It is within this summary that the difficulties of perception are highlighted
along with many of the issues discussed so far. For example, Captain Delano
ignores any evidence which suggests that the "Negroes" are in
a position other than what he would expect them to be in as slaves (assaulting
various members of the crew, and so on), a view confirmed when he compares
Atufal to a bull.
Moreover, he reads the signs before him as a failure of Don Benito's ability
to command rather than the drama of the struggle between the masked "satyrs"
(which is why he fails to see their "cringing" as an act). We
are also reminded of the earlier suggestion by the narrator that seeing
everything in terms of benevolent goodness is not necessarily wise. We also
see the intra-White racism at work with Captain Delano's attitude to the
Spanish (he is confused, by the way-Guy Fawkes was not Spanish or even a
Spanish sympathiser). Captain Delano's racism, evident here in his condescension,
is more explicitly stated when he praises the mulatto who serves them lunch
by suggesting that mixing White blood with Black improves the Black (78).
Captain Delano's alleged innocence, then, is as much a danger to those around
him as it is to himself, and he uses goodness and benevolence as a mask
to cover racism, stupidity and his own superiority complex. As we saw with
"Bartleby," the titles of Melville's stories are misleading in
that the major focus of both of them seems to be the lawyer/narrator, in
the case of "Bartleby," and the focaliser, Captain Delano, in
the case of "Benito Cereno."
Critical reading of "Benito
Cereno"
Stewart Justman ("Repression and Self in 'Benito Cereno'") believes
that although it is often argued that Captain Delano is seen as "innocent,"
he is really "wilfully" ignorant-that in ignoring the signs and
symptoms of the malady around him, and by failing to take moral responsibility
for this at the end of the story, he has "entered into a virtual agreement
to be deceived" (302). He does this, Justman believes, because his
major misconceptions-ignorance of Blacks, a superiority complex, and optimism-"are
so many functions of one belief in the sovereignty of the conscious self."
Or to put it another way, "In Delano's world, whites are blacks' guardians
and Providence is his own guardian in that the conscious mind is guardian
of the subconscious" (301).
Justman sees Delano, in other words, as a "prisoner of his own repressions,
unable to see farther than the self." Babo "cunningly" recognises
this when he flatters Delano by speaking in the third person about himself
thereby suggesting that he has no right to an "I" of his own,
a gesture which reinforces Delano's own "I." For example, when
Babo comes out of the cuddy pretending that Don Benito has cut him in retaliation
for nicking him with the razor, Babo speaks as if he were a powerless character
in a narrative written and controlled by another, a narrative which flatters
Delano as reader (or producer of meaning):
"Ah, when will master get better from his sickness; only
the sour heart that sour sickness breeds made him serve Babo so, cutting
Babo with the razor because, only by accident, Babo had given master one
little scratch, and for the first time in so many a day, too." (Melville
77)
Babo not only appeals to what he has surmised of Delano's belief in the
state of affairs on the San Dominick (that is, that Don Benito is a weak
leader and that this is a sort of "sickness"), he also assumes
the grovelling position of the slave (by claiming to be punished for a trivial
indiscretion) thereby confirming, in one stroke, both Delano's sense of
himself as the superior White man (superior, that is, to both the slaves
and the decaying Spaniard, Don Benito) and the world view upon which such
a claim might rest.
Justman believes, therefore, that Delano is "de facto" in league
with Babo (that is, it is Delano's more-or-less unshakeable self-possession
that Babo counts on), not only because he acts as inquisitor to Babo's torturer
in the shaving scene but also because whenever the "truth" presents
itself to Delano, he "wills" this "truth" away thereby
ensuring his own safety (his life depends on his ignorance) (302). [For
example, in the cuddy scene the narrator comments: "Altogether the
scene was somewhat peculiar, at least to Captain Delano, nor, as he saw
the two thus postured [Babo and Don Benito], could he resist the vagary
that in the black he saw a headsman, and in the white a man at the block"
(Melville 74). Delano, typically, ignores this vagary.] For Justman, then,
Delano's conscious and unconscious struggle for supremacy just as Babo and
Don Benito struggle like the "sternpiece" satyrs (302).
For Justman, then, what makes Delano Babo's dupe is the power that the conscious
has to put its repressions in a safe pace, one which will not allow them
to threaten this self. Justman suggests that this denial is exemplified
in the scene where a Spanish sailor gives Delano a "Gordian" knot
of an intricacy that Delano has not seen before [in Greek mythology, the
Gordian knot was so complicated that the only way to undo it was to cut
it]. Delano says to the sailor:
"What are you knotting there, my man?"
"The knot," was the brief reply, without looking up.
"So it seems; but what is it for?"
"For someone else to undo." (66)
Delano doesn't get it, so the sailor throws the knot to Delano and says:
"'Undo it, cut it, quick'." Delano thinks that this is odd sort
of behaviour, which is unusual given that Delano knows the story of the
Gordian knot, for the image is his.
Instead of thinking all this through, Delano simply gives the knot to an
elderly "Negro" who asks for it and who apologises for the sailor's
behaviour (which does not strike Delano as odd). Delano thinks: "All
this is very queer . . ; but, as one feeling incipient seasickness, he strove,
by ignoring the symptoms, to get rid of the malady" (Melville 66).
In other words, Justman believes that "the knot he holds in his hand
is the knot he holds in his head. . . . What symbols indicate, plot demonstrates"
(304). Put simply, Justman believes that "Delano's own repression cooperates
with Babo's devices of repression" (303), which suggests that there
is a link between the processes of reasoning and the "waking sleep"
which characterises these processes (304), and that this is the message
to which the story points.
Review questions
- What incidents and events can you find in the story which indicate overt
and covert racism, and what clues and cues does the story use to affirm
and/or subvert these?
- How does dramatic irony function in the story?
- How would you answer the question posed by the narrator: "Whether,
in view of what humanity is capable, such a trait [that is, that Delano
is a trusting, good-hearted sort of fellow] implies, along with a benevolent
heart, more than ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectual perception,
may be left to the wise to determine" (37-38).
- "Rationality, in other words, is not without its analogies and
metaphors, and the outcomes of the reasoning processes are as much a function
of the particular analogies and metaphors one chooses as they are of anything
else." Do you agree with this comment? What evidence can you find from
the story to support your case?
Works cited
- Anderson, Walter E. "Form and Meaning in 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'."
Studies in Short Fiction 18.4 (1981): 383-393.
- Berryman, Charles. "'Benito Cereno' and the Black Friars."
Studies in American Fiction 18 (1990): 159-170.
- Bowen, Merlin. The Long Encounter: Self and Experience in the Writings
of Herman Melville. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. 210-233.
(Call No: 813.3 M5 13)
- Craver, Donald H. "'Bartleby' or, the Ambiguities." Studies
in Short Fiction 20.3 (1983): 132-136.
- Eaton, Mark A. "'Lost in Their Mazes': Framing Facts and Fictions
in Benito Cereno." Journal of Narrative Technique 24.3 (1994): 212-236.
- Emery, A. M. "'Benito Cereno' and Manifest Destiny." Nineteenth-Century
Fiction 39.1 (1984). (Call No: S809.33 12)
- Forst, Graham Nicol. "Up Wall Street Towards Broadway: The Narrator's
Pilgrimage in Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'." Studies in Short
Fiction 24.3 (1987): 263-270.
- Friedman, Michael H. "Pickwick Papers as a source for the epilogue
to Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'." Studies in Short Fiction
21 (1984): 147-151. (Call No: S809.31 8)
- Haegert, John. "Voicing Slavery Through Silence: Narrative Mutiny
in Melville's 'Benito Cereno'." Mosaic (1993): 21-38.
- Justman, Stewart. "Repression and Self in Benito Cereno."
Studies in Short Fiction 15.3 (1978): 301-306.
- Levin, Harry. The Power of Blackness: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville. Chicago:
Ohio University Press, 1980. (Call No: 813.309 1)
- Longennecker, Marlene. "Captain Vere and the Form of Truth."
Studies in Short Fiction 14.4 (1977): 337-343.
- Martin, Terry J. "The Idea of Nature in 'Benito Cereno'."
Studies in Short Fiction 30 (1993): 161-168.
- Mitchell, Thomas R. "Dead Letters and Dead Men: Narrative Purpose
in 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'." Studies in Short Fiction 27.3 (1990):
329-337.
- Perry, Dennis R. "'Ah, humanity': Compulsion Neurosis in Melville's
'Bartleby'." Studies in Short Fiction 24.4 (1987): 407-415.
- Post-Lauria, Shelia. "Canonical Texts and Context: The Example
of Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street'."
College Literature 20 (1993): 196-205.
- Person, Leland S. Aesthetic Headaches: Women and a Masculine Poetics
in Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988.
(Call No: 813.309 3)
- Rosenberry, Edward H. Melville. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1979. 101-113. (Call No: 813.3 M5 6)
- Schaffer, Carl. "Unadmitted Impediments, Unmarriageable Minds:
Melville's 'Bartleby' and 'I and My Chimney'." Studies in Short Fiction
24.2 (1987): 93-101.
Last updated August 1996
Comments to Dr John Fitzsimmons:
Phone: (079) 309240; Email: j.fitzsimmons@cqu.edu.au
Humanities Department
Faculty of Arts
Central Queensland University
Rockhampton MC Queensland 4702
Australia