Benito Cereno and American Characteristic

19th Century lit Prof. Bland Typical the Statesn Character Benito Cereno is a work that passing depicts how ideologic self-delusion of an American character is bingle of the most dangerous capacities of mankind. senior pilot Delano a Yankee from Duxbury Massachusetts exemplifies these two American cultures of absorbing record and confidence. As Americans we get under ones skin concerned and helped other less fortunate (i. e. the amount we give to help third world countries), we ar also confident and insolent in personality that we can accomplish anything (i. e. American dream).These traditional American characteristics I believe forms the American arrogance that we are stereotyped to have. We possibly portion others we have no business helping. Just like the American culture Delano truly believes he is doing the right thing, by showing concern and having confidence in being able to help the San Dominick slave- move and he is unequal to(p) of eyesight the horrifying co nsequences of his actions both with respect to his conversancely racialism and his head game of superiority. He spends a day on theSan Dominickfollowing a slave mutiny, never quite aware that anything is wrong until the truth solely exclusively bites his head off.Delano subscribes to a typical Northern view of African slaves he considers them to be naturally lovely, submissive servants. He spends much of his magazine aboard theSan Dominickcondescendingly admiring Babos performance. Melville critiques this naivete arrogance of superiority and friendly racism to which although these characteristic are positive if not careful, can be a barrier that blinds a person from seeing the actual situation. None wore fetters, because the featureer, his friend Aranda, told him that they were all tractable (BC 224) As Delano first boards Benitos send out, the slaves are still unfettered. The beam seems unreal these strange costumes, gestures, and faces, but a shadowy tableau on the nose e merged from the deep, which directly must receive back what it gave (BC). This shadowy tableau, on the displace inhabited mostly by unregulated African slaves, roaming nearly freely is there for Captain Delano to develop his own correspondence as to wherefore this ship culture is the way it is. Having the traditional American character of concern, Delano in nature is concerned somewhat the ship and his intention of genuinely helping the troubled captain Benito Cereno becomes a curtain that pr plaints him from seeing the real intentions of the slaves.Symbols that have previously been formed and encoded by the American culture and up conduceing in the back of his mind Delanos trustful good nature makes him accept the pattern of the tight slaves in his apprehensiveness of the unknown Africans slaves on the ship. With this idea of crimp slaves, confronted with a genuine signs and warning the frail captain Benito Cereno, the vigilant Babo, chain Atufal, the oakum-pickers and ha tchet-polishers, the flaring moments of violence and uneasehe is not capable of understanding and arranging them accurately or truthfully.This trustful and concerned nature of Americans is one of the characters Captain Delano represents. That an American upbringing create a lore even today that we, as a country, had a right to go around the world helping other struggling nations who were beset by tyrants or internal fighting with the attendant killing and raping of the populace. This trusting and concerned nature makes us delusional preventing us from seeing the situations that maybe these country America is helping does not want our help.The same goes for captain Delano his trustful nature creates a delusion of faithful and harmless slaves that helping this slave ship and its current condition of unfettered slaves is a result of the poor solicitude of Captain Delanos lesser Hispanic counter Captain Benito Cereno thereof his is obliged to help to get it under control. This conce rning nature blinds Captain Delano from seeing the truth. Before even making contact with the blacks on the ship, Delano readily stresses their good-natured and pristine qualities.These unsophisticated Africans, with their self-content and peculiar love . . . of uniting industry with pastime, (BC) bring out Delanos washed-outness for negroes. In his understanding of them, they are a variety show of docility and nobility. Delano feels confident as he sees the affectionate zeal and good give birth (BC) As this book reveals, Delano alternates between his attributes of the Africans as an innocent faithful slaves, he tout ensemble misinterprets the slave revolt and totally neglects the blacks inner motivations.While revealing how Delano adapts these ideological images of the black man to fit his own understanding. This confidence from his own American upbringing and staying in his own paradigm of slaves being kind in nature, and are submissive servants make Captain Delano a benign racist. He does not express hate for the black people he likes them. scarcely his fondness of them shows in a characteristic of overconfidence or arrogance, in which that he is confident in his own knowledge that the slaves are manageable creatures, incapable of harm and completely demeaning the black slaves.He considers Babo, for instance, to be a childish slave of limited intelligence. In Delanos understanding, the faithful blacks are close together(predicate) to animal nature than the unobjectionable man is. Delanos dialogue continuously dehumanizes the slaves by attaching animal imagery to them. First, as the narrator mentions, Delano excessivelyk to negroes, not philanthropically, but genially, barely as other men to Newfoundland dogs (BC).When Babo looks up at Don Benito, he is like a shepherds dog, (BC) whose grins denote mere animal humor (BC). These filename extensions and affinity to animals of the slaves becomes not to decline them as human, but instead to acknowl edge them inwardly the white community in their site as docile servants, the image of the dog, domesticated animal, is significant in this context. At the same time, their animal reference accounts for their inability for being totally free.This show of confidence and trust completely blinds Captain Delano from the truth and maybe be seen by the majority as a weakness but this ignorance ultimately helped him from the slave revolt. Delanos trustfulness and perception that all the blacks are docile and faithful slaves and are good nature saves their lives. Delanos ignorance prevents him from discovering the truth, which would almost certainly lead him to a untimely demise.Cereno conveys his force that Babo refrained from murdering Delano, Cereno conveys his surprise that Babo refrains from murdering Delano, to think of some things you did those smilings and chattings,rashpointings and gesturings. For less than these, they slew my mate (BC) This reinforces the fact that if Delano m akes any indication of recognizing the truth, he would have been killed on the spot. Delanos confident, compulsory and absolutely insulting demeanor and perception of slaves being too dumb to be able to formulate a revolt ultimately saves him and Benito Cereno.If Delano is not so unaware of the events encircling him and exhibits a little more suspicion, Babo would certainly have him executed. This confidence that conveys a typical American characteristic is also part of Captain Delanos. This confidence created a barrier that prevented him from once over again seeing the truth in the situation. An arrogant demeanor that he underestimates his adversary, in which nine out of ten will completely destroy you but in this particular story turned out to be an advantage.Captain Delanos overconfidence in his own limited knowledge and upbringing and from his own experiences growing up, and perhaps his interaction with the black community, he views them as a lesser being forming an idea of h imself as a superior or idea of white supremacy that completely limits his understanding and cannot read the gravity of the situation. This overconfidence in his understanding became ignorance and although I believed it helped him from getting killed on the ship by Babo and the slaves, is the same overconfidence that can potentially be deadly.With the revelation of the slave revolt, we should realize that one of the main reasons Delano has been incapable of seeing with the masquerade has been his benign racism, in which that he sees the slaves as harmless and too stupid to come up with such an idea. Delanos racism can be understood most directly it seems to be a reflection of his upbringing in a somewhat heavy(a) Northern racism that practice anti-sla truly views (its important to remember Delano is from Massachusetts, a hotbed of anti-slavery activity during the period).The story suggests that Delano, like others who viewed slaves sympathetically, may have a weak recognition of the horrors of slavery and may consider himself the slaves friend, but such feelings cypher on viewing himself as superior to the slaves and to the slaves staying in their appointed position of submission. In conclusion while Delano finds blacks utterly charming and fun-loving, fond of buttonlike colors and of uniting industry with pastime, this admiration masks his deep-seated conviction that blacks are not entirely human.In fact, when in the midst of trying to understand the ludicrous occurrences on the San Dominick, it briefly occurs to Delano that Cereno might be in league with the blacks, he dismisses the thought with a shudder who ever heard of a white so far a renegade as to apostatize from his very species almost, by leaguing in against it with Negroes? (BC). This proves once again his overconfidence in his understanding limiting him from seeing the big picture that the slaves are controlling the situation. He can never imagine that the slaves are the one who thought up the grandiose plan, that he thinks Captain Cereno is orchestrating something gainst his kin. He fails to discern that the Spanish vessel is in fact in the hold of a complex, meticulously plot mutiny, that the slaves have successfully revolted, and that the dutiful Babo is in fact the revolutionary in command. Delanos trusting and overconfidence in this regard is very nearly fatal, and in a way that the text explains, and that critics have frequently described, it is his concerning, unselfconscious, absolutely cross-grained ideology of slaves and creates a benign racismhis offhand white supremacismthat drives and sustains this ignorance.Despite his several(prenominal) moments of deep suspicion, is his unmoved confidence that a slave like Babo, so naturally docile, so ideally suited to those watchful and pleasant avocations about ones person, could never surpass the unaspiring contentment of a limited mind coarse to all Africans (BC). The blacks in league with a piratical Cereno? B ut they were too stupid, Delano reminds himself (BC).Believing this, he cannot see whats before him, because of his paradigm and views of the slaves in a Yankee upbringing of being sympathetically to the slaves, He is incapable of imagining the black slaves in any but a passive role of devoted and faithful servants, docile and incapable of harming their white superiors, This overconfidence is ultimately ignorance that Delano cannot perceive the dependable situation on the San Dominick. Works Cited Page Melville, Herman, and Herman Melville. Bartleby And, Benito Cereno. New York Dover Publications, 1990. Print.