Melville's Dilemma and Kudos Jeff Morgan

"Benito Cereno" captures both the political and philosophical dispositions of Herman Melville in fictional characterizations and developments. In the piece, we are introduced not only to Melville's take on slavery, which he referred to as "The American National Sin", and its future, but also his insight on evil (as a metaphysical concept) and its humanistic subjectivity.

The assumption we've come to understand is that Melville was an abolitionist, which in a sense is true; however, the plot and dynamics of the piece suggest that perhaps, though sympathetic to the struggles of blacks, Melville was pessimistic about the abolishing of slavery. This is best illustrated by the demise of Babo, where although he led what seemed to be a successful attack on the slave master, he was at the end tragically put to death. In a sense, Melville tries to relay the message that no matter how positive the efforts to abolish slavery, it's deep roots in the national identity of America renders any attempts at justice useless.

This point also relates to Melville's position on evil, which he viewed as being a human institution incapable of being outrooted but one that transforms itself based on subjectivity. In Benito Cereno, we see this notion come into play. We are made to believe that the slave rebellion (an act which can be considered evil in some respect) would lead to the abolishing of the evil on the ship (which in this case is the holding of slaves) only to be met by another evil, the taking of a human life in the name of justice.

In fact, it is in this that similarities between this piece and Douglass's "The Heroic Slave" end. For in the "Herioc Slave", justice is valiantly achieved and evil trounced, not transformed according to Douglas. Also, Douglas has a more optimistic view towards the abolishing of slavery and develops his characters accordingly to reflect this notion.

I truly did enjoy reading "Benito Cereno" despite the awkward sentence structures and vocabularly. I also greatly enjoyed reading Jeff Morgan's response.