Friday, February 6, 2009
Babo the Slave and Leader Simultaneously
Benito Cereno was probably one of the more difficult readings I've done in a while. At first, I enjoyed the difficulty ( I mean, when you read a paragraph that's literally only one sentence but 10 lines, how can you not be proud of yourself for coming out with even a vague understanding of what Melville is getting at? Look at page 102- I don't think I've seen more semicolons in my life?). But later on, I found the difficulty more to be a nuisance than a challenge. But the book was still fairly interesting, especially comparing it to Douglass' piece; Melville's being an account of failure while Douglass' was an account of valiant success. I certainly enjoyed the Captain Hook (Cereno) and Smee (Babo) interaction and liked the ironic twist that Cereno was (instead of a leader) too scared out of his mind to say anything; and the funniest part is that he was a slave to what appeared to be his own slave. The ending does finally satisfy my craving for how this rebellion happened, though I have to admit I thought the climax and rebellion happened all way too fast, one second they are sailing along and the next Babo is leading a mutiny (though I understand that mutinies do happen in the blink of an eye, it's just for me the difficulty of the reading makes it harder to pick up when it does occur). The most satisfying part of the novel was finally was finally hearing Benito Say more than "Si, Senor" and actually have a dialogue expressing some kind of [extreme, because he was just "saved"] emotion. Also I really Babo, because the whole time he had almost a villainous secret leadership going; let's be honest everyone thought he was sketch from the start (though at the end of the book he is still entertaining).
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While the novel was difficult to read, mostly because of the complex language and sentence structure that Melville used, I think this complexity mirrored the multifaceted plot line and the later character development. As was mentioned in class, Melville utilized many compounded sentences and similes that often required reading piece by piece in order to determine the true meaning that the author was trying to get across to the audience. The plot line was also very complex, mostly due to the hidden characterization and double identities that some of the characters were given. I also agree that finally having Benito Cereno narrate a section did finally give the readers the insight they had been looking for in one of the most prevalent characters. I thought the section was a little dry and it didn’t give me the full satisfaction that I was hoping for in the ending. As for Babo, I feel like his final moments (mentioned on pg 112) were too harsh for a man that should be characterized as a leader. While he did harm others in his pursuit of freedom for his “men,” other people that we consider heroes from our history commit similar acts and suffer no punishment.
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