What are the issues that Melville raise regarding race and slavery in Benito Cereno?

Answer 1

Slavery is bad. Racism is ignorant. Melville lived during the time of Plessy v Ferguson.

Answer 2

Theme:
Benign Racism:

Captain Delano is a quintessential "benign" racist. He does not hate blacks; he rather likes them. But he likes them for utterly degrading (and, as "Benito Cereno" shows, utterly fictional) reasons. He considers 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."

Indeed, Delano often compares the Africans aboard the San Dominick to animals. Babo is a "shepherd's dog," an African mother is a "doe" tending her "fawn," Cereno is master of "his little black sheep," and so on. The point is, while Delano finds blacks utterly charming and "fun-loving," fond of bright colors and of "uniting industry with pastime," this "admiration" masks his deep-seated conviction that blacks are not wholly human. In fact, when in the midst of trying to sort out the odd occurences on board 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?"

Melville systematically discredits Captain Delano's "generous" opinions of blacks. Babo, whom Delano takes to be the most faithful slave there could be - even going so far in his "compliments" as to offer to buy Babo as his own slave - turns out to be the scheming mastermind of the mutiny on the San Dominick. Atufal, whom Delano considers a noble savage unjustly chained, ends up being Babo's right hand man in the mutiny. The slave women, whose tenderness toward their children Delano admires, are eager participants in the murder of their Spanish slaveholders.

Melville understood the Babo hiding behind the mask of the submissive slave. He realized, with Civil War on the horizon, that the United States needed to learn this lesson too. The "liberal" mythology of the happily menial black is no better than outright race hatred. Both opinions offer the loathsome conviction that blacks are somehow less human than whites.
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Slavery:

Melville published "Benito Cereno" in 1856; the United States would be at Civil War within four years. The tale represents one of Melville's several contributions to the impassioned debate surrounding slavery during his era. It is not enough to say that Melville was simply opposed to slavery: more than that, Melville understood the larger implications of slavery, and the moral degradation that slavery visited upon all races and all participants.

Ironically enough, Melville put the thesis statement of his take on slavery in the mouth of the most foolish character in "Benito Cereno", Captain Delano. Delano says, "Ah, this slavery breeds ugly passions in man!" And of course he is right. The brutality of slavery leads to the counter-brutality of the slave revolt, which eventually leads to the counter-counter-brutality of the capture of the San Dominick by Delano's men. But it is not enough merely to acknowledge that slavery unleashes such behavior. By putting the condemnation in Delano's mouth, Melville underscores the observation that it is not enough to think slavery wrong: one must recognize the root of the problem, which is racism.

Delano, after all, is thoroughly racist. His concern for Cereno's apparent mistreatment of Babo, which prompts his condemnation of slavery, stems from his own belief that Babo is an ideal black servant- solicitous, submissive, happy, menial. Racism, more than slavery, breeds ugly passions in men, as Delano himself demonstrates at the end of the tale, when he participates enthusiastically in the re-capture of the slaves on board the San Dominick.

As alarming as it may seem today, Melville's era saw the debates surrounding slavery and those surrounding the races as essentially separate. Nearly everyone, Northerners as well as Southerners, subscribed to the opinion that blacks were inferior to whites. Melville, wise beyond his time, shows in "Benito Cereno" how the feeling of racial superiority (or, even more generally, the feeling of superiority of any kind) catalyzes the "ugly passions" that seem, to "liberal" nincompoops like Delano, to stem from slavery itself.

Symbols:

It may seem odd to consider "symbols" a theme in a story. Symbols, after all, represent themes. They are the medium through which, in many books, the thematic subtext is transmitted. However, in "Benito Cereno," something more complicated is going on. A major theme of the tale is the interpretation (and misinterpretation) of symbols. Indeed, many of the most prevalent symbols in the tale are symbols of symbol-hunting: the lock and key, the Gordian knot, etc.

Delano in a chronic misreader of symbols. His trusting nature is such that hidden meanings don't easily penetrate his sight. He would much rather ignore a symbol, or apply to it some quick and easy interpretation, than wrestle with one, which is what Melville requires in "Benito Cereno." For example, as the tale opens, Delano's forebodings about the San Dominick translate easily into gothic imagery. In the eighteenth century, gothic novels, or similarly melodramatic narrative forms, were the primary means by which emotions like foreboding and dread were made accessible to a popular audience. Rather than examine the imagery before him as unique in its mystery, Delano sees it as a type, thus relieving him of the responsibility to actively interpret his world.

Of course, Delano's density in symbol-reading keeps him in the dark about the main plot of "Benito Cereno." He cannot see the evidence of the mutiny even while it is staring him in the face. He hears the Ashanti wizards "clash[ing] their hatchets together, like symbols" and merely reaffirms his prejudice that blacks like to mix play in with their work; never for a moment does he understand the true portent of the "cymbals": that the Ashanti are issuing a threat to Cereno. (Melville plays with Delano's inability to read; "cymbals" sounds like "symbols," after all.)

The prose of "Benito Cereno" is rife with symbolic and mythic imagery, even though the tale is written almost completely from the perspective of the dense and unperceptive Delano. It's thick texture rewards re-readings. And with each re-reading, the reader can, while exploring the symbolic patterns in the work, take stock in how much better a reader he or she is than poor Delano.

Read the links below.

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