Benito Cereno Discussions Questions

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

S. Toland-Dix, Instructor

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT: Provide specifically detailed responses of at least two

(2) paragraphs in length to four (4) of the following questions. Be sure to answer

all parts of the question. Your individual written responses are due by 11:59

pm Monday, July 10th.

1.) When did you realize that Captain Delano was an unreliable narrator? From the time he boards the San Dominic, there are recurring examples of his “blindness” to what is going on around him. Describe specifically three or four obvious signs that he misinterprets. How does he explain away things that initially trouble him?

2.) Discuss Captain Delano’s attitudes toward Black people in “Benito Cereno.” What does he admire about Babo? About the African women? About Atufal? What behavior by Black characters does he disapprove of?

3.) What does Captain Delano think of Benito Cereno? Provide 2 specific examples. What stereotypes does he have of the Spanish? How do they cause him to misread Cereno’s behavior?

4.) Discuss the powerful scene of Babo shaving Benito Cereno. What did you think was happening? How did your perception of that scene change after you completed the novella?

5.) What is really happening on the San Dominick? Why and how did the mutiny take place?

6.) Discuss in detail what exactly happened to Captain Alexandro Aranda.

7.) How does Captain Delano finally become aware of what is really going? What actions does he take once he knows? How does he now describe Babo?

8.) See p. 1562. Describe at least 4 things Babo does within 2-3 hours to set the stage for the performance enacted for Delano’s benefit. What do Babo’s strategies reveal about his insights into the white people he has interacted with in the past?

9.) Melville has written a story that CANNOT be read as a simple cautionary tale of good vs. evil. What about the story makes it more complex than that? Consider where

the mutiny takes place and why. Discuss why it is difficult to see Benito Cereno as simply a victim.

10.) Do you see Babo as a hero? Why or why not? How are our perceptions of him influenced by the depositions of Cereno and Delano? Why doesn’t Babo speak at his trial?

11.) Melville wrote this story in 1856: 17 years after the Mutiny on the Amistad in 1839 and 52 years after the end of the Haitian Revolution. What do you think is the literal and symbolic significance of the last conversation Delano has with Cereno:

“’You are saved,’ cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished and pained; ‘you are saved; what has cast such a shadow upon you?’”

“’The negro.’” (1568)

12.) Do you see Captain Delano as a hero? Why or why not? Do we ever see him from someone else’s perspective? What does he ultimately think of his own actions on the San Dominick?