Melville - Benito Cereno

After going over the text again for Friday's class, I found myself focusing on the last parts of the story, where Don Benito and Captain Delano are talking to one another about the events that transpired on the San Dominick. Specifically, I found it remarkable that Cereno is so downcast at the thought of "The negro." This was obviously a ploy by Melville to show that the Spaniard had witnessed what the negro was capable of in light of severe and hopeless oppression, and in a sense he did not blame Babo or any other slave for the mutiny of his ship because he understood their plight (furthermore, I think he sort of regrets the position of domination he was thrust into as evidenced by the first full paragraph on page2726). When I was finished reading this piece again, I noticed that some of the aspects of the story regarding the hostage situation with Benito Cereno were very similar in nature to aspects of the slave trade itself. That is, Cereno's act that he was forced to put on for Captain Delano so that the latter would not suspect what was really happening on the ship in a lot of ways mirrors the act that slaves and masters had to put on in the presence each other during slavery's reign. I can't assuredly say that this was Melville's intention when he altered the events of the story, but I think it presents an interesting view of slavery as a contrast to domination, but at the same time it can be inferred that in the contrast of a particular subordinate/dominate relationship (in this case, the particular relationship between the slaves onboard the San Dominick and Benito Cereno) that there can exist a lot of similarities between the two groups in the way they dominate. I guess what I am trying to say is that domination in this piece is similar no matter who fulfills the position of the dominator or the subordinate. For instance, the tightly-knit and intricate act put on by Babo and the other slaves on board the ship is reminiscent of the tightly-knit control system that masters used to dominate their slaves. I think the most common thing that both the slaves on the ship and the general masters of slaves employ is the control that they acquire by violence. Overall, for me, the similarities between these two examples serve the function of creating a certain kind of understanding for what Babo and the other slaves did, which I feel Melville seeks to convey to the reader in the last lines of the narrative.