The Character of Benito Cereno

Benito Cereno on first sight appears very noble, he comes from a noble Spanish family but when we dig deeper we find out that his whole family works in trading slaves. So he is really not a good person. The slaves were shackled. Benito C. took these shackles of the slaves because he regarded them very stupid to rebel against them. Slaves at that time were really treated as objects. Even in the constitution of the .S. it was stated that slaves are not persons. The way Benito describes them and talks about them we can feel that he has absolutely no compassion for them. The scene when Benito is giving a deposition in court he is describing the ship. Stating that there are !"# blacks and that they belong to a certain person and so on and so fort, so they are catalogued as any other objects on the ship. They are catalogued among the goods and not among the people. Benito stands for Spain and for Europe. $n the first part of the story the reader can be %uite confused by the way Captain &elano is dealing with the whole situation because he goes on this ship where he sees slaves running around on the ship and for him that is very strange and he thinks that Benito is a very bad captain he blames the whole situation on Benito. 'e blames for not being capable of keeping order and he never things about the fact that maybe the slaves rebelled. So we can see in action the opinion of the .S. towards Europe, because Europe at the time in the !( th century was seen as corrupted, too catholic and actually . S. did not like Catholics because puritans were persecuted by Catholics. That is one of the reasons why Captain &elano does not like Benito. Through the first part of the story we see that Benito is being linked to Spanish Catholicism he is even compared to one of the Spanish kings who persecuted )rotestants. &elano sees that ship as the embodiment of the catholic religion. *nd that is why he has these negative feelings toward Benito and the sailors. *lso we have the evidence of inter+white racism. ,hile slavery serves as an e-ample for racism. $nter+white racism is portrayed through the relationship of Benito and &elano because they hate and despise each other because they come from two very different countries, continents, cultures and religions. The character Benito Cereno e-hibits a level of intelligence not yet appraised by critics, a sense of acuity which helped him live for as long as he did .until the very end of the story/, while also keeping in mind the welfare of himself, &elano, and their combined crew. Cereno keeping a semi+level head while being under constant watch from the keen eye of Babo fulfils the re%uirements to be a hero more so than any other character in 0elville1s story.

Cereno1s leap at the end .to most people/ is seen as a cowardly attempt to preserve his life, a jump made of desperation, when really it signifies his selflessness. Babo1s plan, which was e-plained before &elano1s arrival, was to earn the trust of &elano and his ship, only to board and capture it as the 2San &ominick2 .Cereno1s ship/ was running low on supplies. Cereno saw this and made every attempt not only to secretly tell &elano of this plan and how dire the situation was .cleverly too, as Cereno would fall ill or di33y whenever &elano was coming close to figuring out what was happening near Babo/, but to save the lives which would be lost from &elano1s crew if Babo1s plot was properly e-ecuted. Cereno knew they both would be killed if &elano found out the situation, so he intentionally kept him wondering until Cereno knew it was a somewhat safer time to act, an act that displays a certain intelligence and courage which most other characters do not display. Even his leap was a major risk, as Babo jumped right behind him and attempted to stab Cereno. 4nowing Babo would pursue, Cereno jumped anyway to save &elano. Cereno1s hero status is reinforced by one key symbol. Cereno is the captain of the ship 2San &ominick,2 which clearly is a reference to Saint &ominic of the &ominican 5rder, an important figure in Catholicism. St. &ominic devoted his life to combating religious heresy within Catholicism and spread religious truth, which would later elevate him as a saint of truth. 6or the duration of the story Cereno listens to Babo1s silent commands, all the while trying to spread the truth of the situation to &elano without getting the both of them killed, much like the saint his ship is named for. Cereno7s intentions throughout the story can be seen as selfless actions and attempts to save the lives of &elano and his crew, culminating to the final leap from ship to ship and foiling Babo1s plan. )erhaps if &elano reali3ed the truth sooner Cereno would be hailed as greater than he is now. ,hether that is true or not, Cereno should not be dismissed so %uickly as a weak+intentioned character.