After reading Benito Cereno for the second time, I took note of Babo’s character. For me, it changed from the first to the second read. Moralistically, I think we are supposed to side with Babo in the end. That is how I felt after the first read. However, considering the point of view of the story, (Delano), readers are urged to see Babo as a villain. After completing the second read, I saw Babo as more of a villain. As a result of this, Delano is seen as the hero and Cereno as the victim.
Since my group is debating that Babo was portrayed as an evil character, I noticed examples that made this portrayal true. Babo’s evilness becomes especially evident in the deposition, when the scheme is revealed. On numerous occasions, Babo threatened the Spaniards with weapons and death. Though Babo did not directly commit any of the murders of the Spanish, he ordered all of them to take place. In comparison to Madison Washington, Babo’s motives seem to be out of pure hate, while Washington’s were to benefit all the slaves and inflict as little harm as possible to the white men. The deposition also notes that Babo “was the plotter from first to last; he ordered every murder, and was the helm and keel of the revolt.” Told by Benito Cereno, the deposition allows the readers to understand how Babo acted and why he was portrayed as an evil character.
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I definitely think that this book requires multiple readings in order to get the full meaning. Things and especially characters appear to by one way upon the first reading but change after a second, deeper meaning. I agree that after reading the book a second time, and looking for ways in which Babo was acting evil, as that was our debate topic, changed how I saw Babo's character. Once then entire plot of the story is known, it is much easier to find instances that allude to what has happened and things that are said take on a lot more meaning whereas during the first reading the same sentences can come across as insignificant.
ReplyDeleteI also would like to add that I really enjoyed preparing for the debate today because our whole group was originally on the side that Babo was not portrayed as evil but at least my opinion changed once we started gathering the evidence that he was portrayed that way. I noticed things about Babo that I hadn't previously thought about.