Blog post #6

At the beginning of the story, readers could perceive the narrative of Benito Cereno as a thrilling story between good guys and bad guys. The ship is taken over by slaves (ostensibly bad guys), and the good captain Delano needs to do the right thing, stop the rebellion and save the original crew and the ship.
But when we read further on, we will realize that the revolt is just a desperate try of the slaves to extricate themselves from slavery and a huge injustice of that era. Herman Melville depicted the slavery practice as a part of our history, that is morally completely wrong, but unfortunately, lawful back then. All audience probably felt that the story’s termination is not right, but there was nothing that could have helped Babo at the end.
Slavery is part of our history, even in Europe, where slavery was not based only on race but also on social status, religion or political preferences, and many other aspects until the last century, where things started to change the western world. But there are still many places where slavery is accepted, and that is what we all should be aware of. Delano from the story could react differently. He could empathize with Babo and other slaves, and the narrative could lead to a different outcome. I think Melville wanted to say that it does not mean that all lawfully correct things are morally or ethically correct as well.

3 thoughts on “Blog post #6

  1. christopher cordovez

    I agree with you that the author is setting up the good guys and the bad guys but I believe what the author was tiring to show us the reader that you can’t put a label on who is good or bad for that reason it’s a good book to leave the reader with many questions from good and evil right and wrong.

  2. ZHONGQI WU

    The impact of slavery definitely is huge to people, especially black people. They lived in distress and suffered from the constraint of slavery in that special time. Their revolt implies their resistance to slavery.

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