Summary Of Benito Cerreno

Herman Melville’s story Benito Cereno creates controversial arguments and moral questions. First published in 1855, the story tells of an American captain, Amasa Delano, attempting to assist an apparently broken-down ship called the San Dominick. Initially, the ship’s leader, the namesake of the story, appears as this weak leader that cannot control the conflict among the slaves and sailors. As Delano further discovers the ship and doubts Cereno’s motives, the readers are almost brought to believe that Cereno tricked Delano into a piracy stunt. However, the story takes quite a twist when Delano attempts to return to his own ship and Cereno launches himself overboard while his “loyal slave” Babo foes after him. Finally, the true plot is unveiled, as the reader and Delano realize that

All of the events leading up to this are truly explained through Delano’s deposition, which attempts to credit the “based-on-a-true-story” idea in a more convenient way that naturally flows into the story. Therefore, fact versus fiction is a common discourse of the novel, as well as race relations, leadership, and the authority of an author. Specifically, Melville manipulates the real-life character of Captain Delano in order to maintain the dynamic of the story, but this alteration questions the limits of an author’s ability to change the truth. Before discussing why Melville changed Delano, or whether or not he should have, there is first a question of how exactly he did it. When first introduced to Delano, readers have this image of a