46 pages • 1 hour read
Herman MelvilleBenito Cereno
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1855A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context: Slavery in the Americas
Content Warning: This section discusses racism and the history of slavery in the Americas.
Benito Cereno unfolds against the backdrop of slavery in the Americas. Though the story is set in 1799, Herman Melville wrote the novella in 1855, just six years before the beginning of the US Civil War; while various issues contributed to the tensions, slavery was at the heart of the conflict. Slavery as practiced in the Americas took root during the European colonization of the continents. From 1526 to 1867, approximately 12.5 million people—men, women, and children—were seized from Africa. The journey from Africa to the Americas, referred to as the Middle Passage, could take several months and was marked by deplorable conditions. Ships faced the perils of epidemics, pirate attacks, and adverse weather. Enslaved passengers were typically kept shackled to each other belowdecks, enduring harsh and inhumane conditions. All told, roughly 10.7 million Africans arrived in the Americas. The majority, over 90%, were transported to the Caribbean and South America, with some 6% directed to British North America (Mintz, Steven. “Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery.” Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History).
Melville’s Benito Cereno does not portray the Middle Passage, rather focusing on the trade of enslaved persons between South American countries. The San Dominick departs from Chile and is bound for Peru. Likewise, the enslaved people on the San Dominick are not newly arrived from Africa; some of them were born in South America, and others had lived there for many years. In contrast to the usual harsh conditions of the Middle Passage, Alexandro Aranda allows the enslaved passengers to stay above deck, unshackled. Nonetheless, the enslaved passengers revolt, exploding the myth that slavery could ever be humane. Uprisings of enslaved people were not uncommon at the time. Melville’s narrative draws on a historical event—the 1805 revolt of enslaved passengers on the Spanish ship Tryal, chronicled by Captain Amasa Delano in his 1817 memoir.
Authorial Context: Herman Melville
Herman Melville (1819-1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet. He is best known for Moby-Dick (1851), widely regarded as one of the greatest American novels. Between 1853 and 1856, Melville contributed short fiction, including Benito Cereno, to various magazines. Melville was part of the American Renaissance, a literary movement spanning from 1830 to 1865, and profoundly admired other writers linked to movement, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom he dedicated Moby-Dick.
Melville’s literary production was deeply intertwined with his seafaring experiences. Serving as a cabin boy on the St. Lawrence in 1839 and later as a crewman on the whaling ship Acushnet in 1841, he embarked on several maritime adventures that inspired his writing. His desertion from the Acushnet led to capture by the Typee, an experience that inspired his debut book, Typee (1846). Following a brief incarceration post-desertion, Melville enlisted in the US Navy in 1843. In his writing, Melville drew on his adventures at sea and borrowed from others’ seafaring tales. (Captain Amasa Delano’s memoir inspired Benito Cereno.) Melville’s sea voyages allowed him to provide thorough and precise depictions of life at sea; in Benito Cereno, he frequently describes details related to the ship’s structure and navigation.
Melville is also known for his propensity for unreliable narration. In Moby-Dick, various factors cast doubt on Ishmael’s reliability, and, in Benito Cereno, the narration is unreliable due to its limitation to Delano’s and Cereno’s perspectives, which exclude the voices of the Black rebels. The extent to which this unreliable narration results in an antislavery, antiracist text has generated much critical debate. Certainly, Delano’s patronizing attitude toward the enslaved passengers contributes to his delayed grasp of the true situation, but the brutality of the uprising arguably perpetuates the myth of the “savage” African. On the other hand, it is possible to read that brutality as itself a response to the violence of slavery. This kind of ambiguity is also typical of Melville’s work, which frequently engages with moral and philosophical inquiries while reaching few simple answers.
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