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Bentio Cereno By Herman Melville: An Analysis

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In the world, everyone usually lives by the rules or expectations most people believe everyone should live by. These rules and expectations are always changing and varying depending on the area one lives in and events that are going on in the world. Riots and movements can especially change these expectations. In the story Herman Melville wrote, “Bentio Cereno” there is a black slave who took over a ship full of sailors and killed their master, but kept alive Benito Cereno who was another main sailor on the ship. Babo is the main slave who took over the ship and now all the slaves are free to do what they please. Another ship sees the ship struggling and goes to see what is going on. Benito Cereno is forced to act as if he is the captain of …show more content…

The slaves who were on the ship took over and killed the original captain. Benito Cereno was next in charge but they kept him alive to help them to find another ship to capture; however, the slaves kept other sailors around. The two slaves who had the strongest say were Babo and Atufual. When they were sailing they came to an island but did not anchor too close, afraid that someone will figure out they were slaves who were now in charge of a ship. There was another ship, which they planned to take over. The other ship saw Benito’s ship seemed out of place, therefore they wanted to go check it out. the slaves knew this was going to happen therefore, they made a plan to have Babo act as if he is the servant to the “captain” Cereno. When the other sailors arrived at the ship the other captain whose name is Captain Delano boarded. Captain Delano felt as if something was off by the way the slaves were acting on the ship. Although in the world today black people roaming free on a ship would be nothing out of the ordinary. In the time of the world at that time it was very odd. Captain Delano thought maybe the slaves were very well behaved and they were aloud privileges. Throughout his experience on the boat he saw black slaves treating the other sailors in not normal way that he knew. He felt as if those slaves should be punished. When Captain Delano wanted to talk to Benito privately he was never able to because Babo the “servant” would not let them. There were many different situations that caused suspicion upon Captain

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While Captain Delano observes the slaves in their various tasks, his opinion of what an African slave’s traits are become glaringly clear, he explains while looking at the six Ashantees that there is a “peculiar love in negroes of uniting industry with pastime” and that they “had the raw aspect of unsophisticated Africans” (2902). Captain Delano truly believes that Africans merely enjoy working hard for their masters and that they are not intelligent enough to conceptualize wanting something more than this. Nothing more accurately articulates Captain Delano’s perspective on the benevolence of slavery then the ‘benevolent’ relationship he views between Benito and Babo—master and slave. Captain Delano finds a “humane satisfaction” when he “witnessed the steady good conduct of Babo” (2903) the seemingly loving nature of Babo reassures Delano of his own interpretations of slaves and how that relationship is supposed to be perceived. Analogously, Benito Cereno explains to Captain Delano that “it is Babo here to whom, under God, I owe not only my own preservation, but likewise to him, chiefly, the merit is due, of pacifying his more ignorant brethren, when at intervals tempted to murmurings” (2907), in which the purported benevolence of Babo has empowered Cereno to keep control of his ship.

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