Thursday, September 27, 2012
Poelker Melville Blog
Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno employs a sense of ambiguity not only in the complicated slave-master dynamic between Babo and Benito Cereno, but in the language itself. Take this quotation form the first page of the novella: “The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything grey. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed.” First of all, the use of the color grey, while a common description for weather, is a notable choice denoting a sense of ambiguity given that this is the first physical description in the whole piece. Grey is also interesting given the black and white race distinctions with which the text deals. Furthermore the paradox between the “fixed” ocean and the fact of its motion heightens the somewhat spooky sense of the ambiguous that Captain Amasa will sense even more once he boards the ship of Captain Cereno. There’s also a sense of ambiguity about the Cereno’s status as a gentleman. There is his obvious suspicion about the institution of slavery, especially the way he perceives that Cereno is treating the one slave in irons. The is especially complicated in the end, when we learn that the slaves are also pirates and murderers. Take this quotation from the deposition: “...that the Negro Babo warned him that if he varied in the least, or uttered any word, or gave any look that should give the least intimation of the past event or present state, he would instantly kill him.” This sentence is important because, for one thing, it explains the strange mannerism of Captain Cereno, and his ungentlemanly actions. Also though, it points to a certain violence, even bloodlust, on the part of Babo, who seems so innocent and friendly in the first part of the story. Are we to forgiven the violence and treachery because they were fighting for freedom against a grave violation of human rights? Cereno himself doesn’t seem vindicated by the deposition: “He said that he is twenty-nine years of age, and broken in body and mind; that when finally dismissed by the court, he shall not return home to Chili but betake himself to a monastery on Mount Agonia. Melville attacks slavery through ambiguity. By pointing out that there can be no victors, real or moral, he points out the grave evil in taking away basic human rights.
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Gray has its own symbolic significance, as you point out, as well as being applied in terms of morality. The human rights issues push the sense of moral ambiguity further, especially with how closely linked slavery is to race. What your post seems to be getting at is that because the morality is gray, the story never gives either Babo or Cereno a moral high ground, so both are at least partially at fault for the events of the story. Of course, the morality of the violence on the part of Babo is only gray from Delano’s point of view. Between Babo and Cereno, the conflict is actually black and white: Cereno wronged Babo, and so he retaliated. It really is not any different than any number of slave revolt stories (such as any given film version of Spartacus) beyond a narrator who obscures which side is good and which is evil. Ambiguity, in this case, is a matter of opinion.
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