Reversing the Master and Slave Role in Benito Cereno Essay

“The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave” revolves around the life of Esteban Montejo: who once set his life is the Caribbean island of Cuba; in which this story provides readers with another distinctive approach to teaching the lives of slavery. As the narration progresses through this writing, readers consequently have many opportunities to annotate how the abolition of slavery played a great role in his personal life. Evidently, whether it is intentional or unintentional, the narrator frequently mentions the ending of slavery, as he substantially detailed “…till slavery left Cuba,” (Barnet 38); “… I got to know all these people better after slavery was abolished,” (Barnet 58); and “It was after Abolition that the term ‘effeminate’ came into

“The Horrors of a Slave Ship,” describes in detail, the tragic experiences of Olaudah Equiano as a captive slave. Equiano suffered many sleepless nights; he was flogged and kidnapped multiple times. In the article, the author is trying to give the reader the feeling by giving details of the brutally floggings and desperation as many slaves suffocated to death as they were placed in an overcrowded deck. Overall, the author tries to give readers their point across of the difficulties in being a captive slave.

The life of Olaudah Equiano was a mixture of tragedy, struggle, and achievement. He was forced onto a ship to the Caribbean, after being kidnapped at age seven. He witnessed something that haunted him for the rest of his life, the injustice of slavery. “ The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was so dangerous to remain there for a long time…” (Equiano 28) In that quote he is explaining the living conditions underneath the ship, and how dangerous it could be for anyone that remained there. He also gives another quote saying, “The closeness of the place, and

A major theme of the book is how effective the use keeping ignorance, creates delusions. Slaveholders withheld information from their slaves to maintain authority and order. Referring back to Douglass never

In chapter seven of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass is finally aware of his approximate age, and is burdened with the thought of being a “slave for life.” At the age of 12, it is not very encouraging to be given the description of a “slave for life.” Douglass uses his newfound reading and writing skills to cleverly comprehend the book The Columbian Orator, and the speeches from the Catholic emancipation it contains, in his favor. The book Douglass discovers does a good job of supporting his invalidation of slavery as well as providing him with knowledge and reasonable arguments.

Olaudah Equiano 's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, is the story of the eponymous real-life character, Olaudah Equiano, his life, trials, tribulations and journey from slavery at an early age to freedom. For Equiano, it seems that slavery is almost a metaphysical phenomenon. His entire life is essentially characterized by the different experiences relating slavery, from Africa to the Middle Passage to plantation life in the West Indies and United States. Equiano’s views on slavery are tough to articulate and truly complex. Throughout the novel he makes reference to different ‘degrees of slavery,’ at times condemning the practice, and at other times contradicting

In the first half of the book, Blassingame did a fantastic job of explaining the conditions of African slaves coming to the American south, and being exposed to Western culture for the first time. The exposure to Western culture by Africans was something that was not focused on as much by other historians. One crucial example the author used was that of one African slave known as Olaudah Equiano, who was sent to a plantation in Virginia. Based on his own accounts,

Equiano is then sold to another master, a wealthy widow who had a son. Equiano then states, “The next day I was washed and perfumed, and when mealtime came, I was led into the presence of my mistress, and ate and drank before her and her son. This filled me with astonishment; and I could scarcely avoid expressing my surprise that the young gentlemen should suffer me, who was bound, to eat with him who was free; and not only so, but that he would not at any time either eat or drink till I had taken first, because I was the eldest, which was agreeable to our custom.” (Equiano 29) Up to this point, Equiano had it comparatively easy when compared to the experiences of others who had been enslaved. As The Slave Ship illustrated for us,

Captain Delano is a benevolent racist. He does not hate blacks people or the slaves; he rather likes them. However, he likes them for absolutely degrading reasons. He thinks of Babo, for instance, to be a childish slave of limited intelligence. Melville writes that Delano takes to blacks "not philanthropically, but genially, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs.

In Herman Melville’s mysterious novella, “Benito Cereno”, Captain Amasa Delano observes, what appears to be, a distressed Spanish slave ship navigating into the harbor of St. Maria. Disregarding the opposition from his crew, Captain Delano leaves his ship, Bachelor's Delight, and approaches the foreign vessel, San Dominick, via a whaleboat. In addition to offering water and provisions to the vessel in distress, Captain Delano encounters—who appears to be in command of the vessel—Don Benito Cereno, and his “faithful” negro servant Babo. Throughout the novella, Captain Delano witnesses many suspicious behaviors from Benito Cereno, Babo, and the other slaves on board. Although Captain Delano has mixed feelings about Benito Cereno, in which he often views him as a “paper captain” who has “little of command but the name”, Captain Delano fails to latch onto his intuition of who is truly in command of the ship until it’s almost too late.

Equiano’s luck soon shifted when he was once again kidnapped and sold as a slave, this time he would have to endure the notoriously dreadful journey across the sea to America. Knowing that this was a pivotal point in his life and that he would become a gudgeon to the harshness of slavery, Equiano attempted to prepare himself for what lay ahead. However, the sight of the inhumane acts he witnessed on the African coast, while being transported, were new to Equiano and instilled fear into his consciousness.

The works of Herman Melville and Frederick Douglass are both centered on the topic of slavery. Although both texts are similar in the sense that they focus directly on the theme of slavery, the functions of each work differ drastically. The differences in the works stem from both the style of the text, and the way that this style functions in accordance with the reader. Although Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno is drawn from an actual event, Melville embellishes and alters the event in the style of prose. The prose style used by Melville invites the reader to question the story while understanding that the majority of the work is fictional. The confusion of Captain Delano is brought onto the reader, and therefore engages the reader because of the limited point of view the story is told in. Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass tells of actual events that occurred using twentieth and twenty-first century plain style. This style of writing does not ask the reader to question what he is saying, but feel his emotions as they read the narrative. Although readers may understand both works to be stories about slavery written differently in terms of style, I argue that the way the texts are written sets up the readers interpretation of them. Melville and Douglass differ because Melville’s work invites the reader to think, whereas Douglass’s work invites the reader to feel.

Early American Literature reflects many conflicting differences in the presentation of slavery during that time period. Through the two chosen texts, the reader is presented with two different perspectives of slavery; Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a look at a slave’s life through the eyes if a slave while Benito Cereno showcases the tale of a slave uprising from the viewpoint of the slave owner.. Benito Cereno’s work shows the stereotypical attitude towards African-American slaves and the immorality of that outlook according to Douglass’s narrative. Cereno portrays the typical white slave owner of his time, while Douglass’ narrative shows the thoughts of the slaves. The two stories together show that white Americans are oblivious to the ramifications and overall effects of slavery. These texts assist a moralistic purpose in trying to open up America’s eyes to the true nature of slavery by revealing it’s inhumanity and depicting the cruelty that was allowed.

Captain Amasa Delano is an interesting embodiment of white complacency about slavery and it's perpetuation. Delano is a human metaphor for white sentiment of the time. His deepest sensibilities of order and hierarchy make it impossible for him to see the realities of slavery. Delano's blindness to the mutiny is a metaphor for his blindness to the moral depravity of slavery. The examination of Captain Delano's views of nature, beauty, and humanity, allow us to see his often confusing system of hierarchical order which cripples his ability to see the mutiny and the injustice of slavery.

A major example of the grayness in this story is in this excerpt: "The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter 's mould. The sky seemed a gray surtout. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms (Melville)." Captain Delano believed that blacks were kind-hearted and humble people and may have had good intentions, but he still found nothing wrong with the slaves aboard the San Dominick. He even thought Babo as an ideal servant for Captain Cereno, saying he was submissive, yet happy (Richards). Delano may have good thoughts about the slaves he still believes nothing is wrong with the idea of them and that kind of thinking settles more on the bad side of things. While Benito Cereno and Babo on the other hand are what really create the gray in the story. Benito Cereno was a captain of a slave ship, so there was no question that he was in favor of slavery also considering that he had a personal slave servant. Babo was a slave on this ship, he was enslaved, like all the other slaves, for no reason other than that the whites thought they