Benito Cereno is often cited as a powerful statement on enslavement in the U.S. Now that you have finished the novella, what are your thoughts about how Herman Melville depicted this practice? Does the novella depict enslavement in a negative or a positive light? Who do we sympathize with at the conclusion of the story? What should we make of Delano’s blindness?

Ans: Delano’s blindness is not able to recognize fully. He was there to help also and he was thinking something else also. Ans also, through out the story, Delano was not clearly aware about what was wrong with San Dominick because Delano doesn’t understand the story of the Cereno as he doesn’t quite add up. Even Herman Melville through the story depiction of Delano’s articulate blindness to the slaves potential to act violently and it is less clear what picture of dark character we end with. Melville does not think the complications are completely opened and clear from the reality that he does not end the story there. Instead, he combine a totally unreliable trade between Cereno and Delano follow  to the recovering of the dispatch, in which Delano endeavors to induce Cereno to move past what has happened and Cereno answers that he will never be able to avoid the shadow cast by slaves upon his life. Hence, I don’t think we do sympathize to anyone with at the conclusion of the story.

In chapter 6, Jonathan culler, “Narrative” stories are the main way to sense the thing considering of our lives as a movement driving to some places or telling ourself whats happening in the world. He said that good story must have a beginning, middle and the end and also the rhythm that gives the pleasure. When I was reading “Narrative” I was thinking about the movie “Bedtime stories”. In this movie Marty Bronson builds the Sunny Vista Motel in Los Angeles, California, with the intention of raising his son Skeeter and his daughter Wendy in the place where he works. However he is not a good businessman and the hotel goes bankrupt. Marty is forced to sell his motel to Barry Nottingham who promises to hire Skeeter in a general manager position when he has grown up. Years later, Barry builds a new hotel; forgets his promise to Marty and Skeeter Bronson is only the handyman of his hotel. The general manager is the arrogant Kendall, who is engaged with the shallow Barry’s daughter Violet Nottingham. When the Webster Elementary School where Wendy is the principal will be closed to be demolished, she needs to travel to Arizona for a job interview. Wendy asks her friend to watch her son and her daughter during the day and Skeeter to watch them during the night. Skeeter meets the estranged kids with his best friend and makes up bedtime stories to help them to sleep but the kids add details to the stories, changing their endings. Soon Skeeter realizes that the plot of the stories are coming true and affecting his life. Meanwhile Barry Nottingham decides to give a change to Skeeter to dispute the manager position in his new hotel with Kendall like in one of his stories. But Skeeter has told to his nephew and his niece that stories do not have happy endings. So, I think this stories has perfect ending even though it has not happy ending.

Culler said that stories first give pleasure through their imitation of life and their rhythm, provide a new twist. I think he is true the pleasure of narrative is linked to desire.

In the chapter Rhetoric, poetics, and poetry, Poetry is closely associated to rhetoric, the consider of the persuasive and expressive resources of language. Culler points to characterize both poetry and rhetoric, citing both their contrasts and the ways in which they are associated. He specified that rhetoric being the art of persuasion and poetry being the art of imitation. He goes on to the list of couple rhetorical figures such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. These are the most basic structures by which we make sense of experience. Poetry as Culler characterizes can be seen in numerous distinctive ways such as either a structure (the real words on a page implied to be studied) or an occasion (the act of the writer or the experience of the reader). Culler implies to treat poem on a different level than other shapes of rhetoric. I think in the poem “The sea is history” by Derek Walcott, I found metaphor as a main rhetoric technique and this is the interesting for me. In the middle line of poem, Walcott says that sad and mournful songs could be heard from the seabed and the mournful songs have been sung by the slave women. The poet answers himself that the history is hidden in the sea sands where the bodies of African slaves reside now. African slaves must have commitment towards the journey for history and as it were at that point the poet will offer assistance them to find it. This is why this poem can be visual metaphor for the societies and battles that have shaped as a result of slavery.

After reading the chapter 4, Jonathan mention that literature has three dimensions of meaning, the meaning of word that comes from the things they might do in utterances, the meaning of an utterance which is an act by a speaker and meaning of a text which represents an unknown speaker making an utterance. Language doesn’t provide labels for pre-existing categories as it generates its own categories speakers and readers can be brought to see through and around the settings of their language, in order to see alternate reality. Meaning is directed to a great extent by setting and experiences. What one individual says may mean something completely unique to someone else. Similarly, as the meaning of life is relative, the meaning of words we utilized relies upon the context, our intent and other’s understanding. The idea taken from the poem by Robert Frost, strikes me as interesting regarding the relationship between language and meaning. There’s a difference between asking about the meaning of text and the meaning of word. In other hand, Saussure defines linguistics as the study of language and as the study of the manifestations of human speech. He says that linguistics is also concerned with the history of language and with the social or cultural influences that develop the shape of language. Language have been a major issue for recent theory. We really need to understand the language and meaning.

After reading the nature of literature by Jonathan Culler, I found he mention literature as the ‘foregrounding’ of language, literature as the integration of language, literature as fiction, literature as aesthetic object and literature as intertextual or self-reflexive construct. I found literature as fiction most interesting and useful. Nothing could be more interesting as creative a novels by our imagination. A work of a fiction is a work of a literature. Literary traditions are certainly a quality that sets writing separated from other shape of composing. Literature fiction investigates shade of language, subject and imaginary tends to be a character driven instead of plot driven. In fiction the connection of what speaker say to what creators think is a interpretation. I was wondering why readers attend to literature differently that its utterances have a special relation to the world? The relation is called a fictional that include speakers, actors, events and an implied audience and also the fictionality is not limited to characters and events. These are the features of the language related to the situation of utterances.

After reading the chapter 2, What is literature and does it matter? Jonathan Culler define literature in various ways. He says literature isn’t as it were the composed word, but it has a certain quality which makes it interesting and worthy of consideration. I think the most important aspect of this section of the chapter is that literature may have a few qualities that separate it from a personal history or any life situations for instance. It is important for thinking about the definitions of literature. I believe literature is a form of human expression. Culler believes that history has molded the definition in such a way that it applies to more shapes of writing than the fair story. Literature has its own ability to build on itself. He is also trying to inform us that the literature could be a discourse act or any textual occasion that obtain certain sorts of consideration. It is able to bring almost distinctive feelings and reflects human nature to learn a way to relate each other. So, Literature helps us to understand the detail of human experiences and to connect desires and emotion in a different way.

As I read this chapter I am stayed with one question that ” How does a set of texts that cultural arbiters recognize as belonging to literature.?

Hello professor and all my dear friends. My name is Samikshya Acharya. I am here in New York since 4 years. I live with my husband in queens. I am a student at Laguardia Community College and My major is Registered Nurse. I joined back school after 7 years and this is my 3rd semester. I am enjoying my study. At first it was very hard for me to continue education. I was afraid to attend class thinking what should I speak and how do I talk with professor but later on I find my friends and teachers very helpful and I am use to it. I learn a lot from them. I used to work in JFK airport but I have to quit because of the pandemic. I love to travel, Listening music and study novel. Also I love to take a lot of pictures. My favourite dish is simple food like daal, rice and vegetable curry. I also enjoy playing with a little animals like goats, 😛 puppy and cats. I do play basket ball.  I would like to wish you all good luck for every project we are getting. We have to work together. Even though we are not able to see each other we can find a way to help each other.