Having just finished the novel I have to say that the ending did not disappoint. It wasn't so much the surprise of the slave rebellion (which, lets face it, wasn't much of a surprise given that the title of our edition is "Two Slave Rebellions at Sea") rather the brilliance of the ending lay in Cereno's recounting of the experience and his reflections upon it to Delano.
While Benito Cereno is physically saved by Delano, it seems as if he never able to recover emotionally. I believe this stems from the fact that Cereno felt emasculated in all ways by the blacks on the ship and by Babo in particular. While Cereno regains his vigor briefly on the ship he remains unable to even look or speak about Babo. I believe that Babo's treatment of Cereno was meant to reflect the white treatment of slaves. Babo forces Cereno to take every action under ultimate fear of death. The white crew men are so petrified that even when a chance to possibly escape arises with Delano's boat, they are mostly passive. The narrator even confirms the idea of Cereno as Babo's slave when he speaks of Babo's intelligence, "As for the black - whose brain, not body, had schemed and led the revolt". By attributing intelligence to the slaves, the narrator is venturing outside of the accepted norms of his time, in which most slaves were considered stupid brutes.
Upon arriving once again on solid ground, Cereno is unable to shake the mental stigma of being dominated by a slave. His health deteriorates and ultimately he dies. Cereno's death is spoken of in the same passage as Babo's saying, "Benito Cereno, borne on the bier, did, indeed, follow his leader." This ending, while seemingly referring to Aranda, the slave master who was killed on the boat, could also be read as referring to Babo as Cereno's leader. It is this reading that I find the most convincing and might ultimately give us the slightest glimpse into Melville's own views of slavery.
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I like the direction you took in reading this book. I certainly don't think Melville's views on slavery were displayed outright. We could easily say that he thought slaves were bad and white people were good... as seen by the narrator. Like you suggested, perhaps we should look deeper. There seems to be some dichotomy between the narrator and what's actually going on. The narrator (and often Delano, same difference?) often makes the normal racially prejudiced comments that set up the slaves as different and therefore inferior. However, the real mastermind is Babo, who effectively switched the role of master and slave as you talked about with Cereno. This is subversive, and it speaks to Melville's intelligence that he could present a surface view that appeases his audience with a subliminal and subversive meaning running through the backbone of the work. I like your ideas here... they make a lot of sense to me!
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