Blog Post #6

After finishing Benito Cereno, I believe the Herman Melville depicted enslavement in a positive light and Delano’s blindness plays a part into this. You see, in the mind of Delano he sees both the slaves and Benito’s crew as working together in harmony and is even amused at the fact that Babo, one of the slaves, helps the clumsy Benito. But later it is all revealed to be a farce and that Babo intended to kill Benito just like the slaves killed Benito’s passengers and crew members. Eventually, the uprising by the slaves is “heroically” defeated by Delano’s crew and we read about Benito and Delano interacting afterwards with Benito basically being scarred for life and eventually retreating to a monastery, where he dies. I think the author tries to make the reader sympathize with Benito multiple times but as for me, he literally engaged in slave trade so the slaves have a justification as to why they did what they did.