Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

Don Benito Cereno: No Future without the Past

Good Essays
732 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Don Benito Cereno: No Future without the Past
A.P. English September 22, 2012
No Future Without the Past

By: Bernice Mojica “But the past is past; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright sun has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves.” “Because they have no memory,” he dejectedly replied; “because they are not human.” “But these mild trades that now fan your cheek, Don Benito, do they not come with a human-like healing to you? Warm friends, steadfast friends are the trades.” “With their steadfastness they but waft me to my tomb, Senor,” was the foreboding response. “You are saved, Don Benito,” cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished and pained; “you are saved; what has cast such a shadow upon you?”
“The Negro.” (pg. 75)
-Melville, Herman. Benito Cereno. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990

Don Benito Cereno’s epiphany over the mistake of underestimating the Negroes keeps him moralized upon the past, rather than accepting his wrong doings and modifying them into optimistic beneficial accomplishments. To prove that his way of thinking is keeping him from moving on, Captain Delano advices him that, “the past is past; why moralize upon it?” Delano is letting him know that he can’t hold himself back from a great future based on a rotten past. Although selfishness is looked upon as a sinful thought, pleasing one’s self is still considered a good intention. Delano comforts Cereno by indirectly assuring him that he should never regret what has been done, because during the moment of that action, there was always a reasonable purpose to be followed. Those experiences taught him how to become a better human being; hence, if he didn’t go through any of that, he would not have the current regretful feelings he has at the end of the novel. Delano alludes to Benito that if the world is able to metamorphose, then so can he; “See, yon bright sun has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves.” These are all forms of our dynamic nature which juxtapose Benito’s static character. Don Benito comes to realize that the population he had once tortured is the same as those who have morally and mentally saved him. This is translated when Captain Delano asks him, “you are saved; what has cast such a shadow upon you?” and Cereno replies that “the Negro” is what has cast the shadow upon him. The Negroes aboard the San Dominick represent “blackness”. Therefore, Cereno is implying that blackness is the evil within human nature, which the black ethnic group metaphorically represents. Blackness is a connotation of an actual color, and in this case, it is also the live image of what us humans believe stands for worthlessness and diabolic. This comparison is an oxymoron to what Cereno is referring to. If you recall, Cereno had stated that he was saved because of this blackness; which I had just mentioned was unholy. This contradiction establishes how there is no future without the past; how you cannot grow without a base to keep yourself standing. There is no need for change if there is nothing destructive keeping you from reaching your goals. Cereno believes he himself was the destructiveness keeping the Negroes from fulfilling their wishes of being able to see their families again. This brings about the empathy that the reader feels towards him in the end. With this passage being at the end of the novel, it clearly exhibits a stable theme for the novel as a whole. Race seems to be the common denominator throughout the story. This is supported by the fact that it was written during the 1850’s; when slavery was most popular. Melville seems to realize that this sort of power over other humans was morally wrong and he did not agree with what was socially acceptable. Our generations have been taught that we should never judge a book by its cover, therefore, we should not judge a man by his color. You should never underestimate a man based on what he doesn’t have, but rather estimate his power based on what he does have. Now that Don Benito Cereno comes to terms with the equality of all men, he took the first step into admitting his mistakes and chooses to follow a leader rather than being one.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Howard Zinn, Chapter's 1-5

    • 2767 Words
    • 12 Pages

    be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.” By…

    • 2767 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next. He thought with regret on the bargain he had made with his black friend, and set his wits to work to cheat him out of the conditions. He became, therefore, all of a sudden, a violent church goer. He prayed loudly and strenuously as if heaven were to be taken by force of lungs” (7).…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I felt the old rage of helplessness. But as for Chris – he gave no sign of feeling anything. He was sitting on the big wing-backed sofa curled into the bay window like a black and giant seashell. He began to talk to me, quite easily, just as though he had not heard a word my grandfather was saying. This method proved to be the one Chris always used in any dealings with my grandfather.…

    • 1896 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Self is called into question as Captain Delano, of Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, faces himself in situations unlike any he has approached before. This concept of self shapes the way in which Delano acts once aboard the San Dominick and how he tackles the obvious uneasiness that his peers face. While aboard the San Dominick, Captain Delano is required to look at himself in a completely different way than he has ever done so before and he does this through Jacques Lacan’s mirror stage. He undergoes a “transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes an image,” that is when he understands himself to be a part of the slave revolt (Lacan 503). Delano’s self-actualization or mirror stage occurs as he progresses from seeing Cereno…

    • 1383 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The lingering light was immersed by the rapidly falling night. The once salmon, purple sky transformed into a vast expanse of jet-black that engulfed the whole town. Yet at the corner of the street, the house remained unchanged. Supported only by stilts, its shabby character inconsistent to the grace and elegance of its neighbours. Its door flung open and a large figure emerged under the flickering light juxtaposed by dark shadows, followed by ‘Don’t go Benjamin’. The sentimental tone evident in the melodious voice. But the arrogant figure departed blithely without regard for the tender values. ‘He shouldn’t have done that. Old wounds should never be reopened’, the old man whose eyes adamantly refused to leave the windowpane let out solemnly as though the times which he ran away from, caught up to him.…

    • 866 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The point made by Mark Twain’s “The War-Prayer” (1905) is simple, even simplistic: that the unspoken part of the desire for victory over the enemy is the desire that misery and death befall others. The irony, as noted by the stranger who comments on this silent prayer, is that it is directed supposedly “in the spirit of love” to “Him who is the Source of Love” (398). In fact, Twain’s piece makes this irony unmissable, as it ends with the failure of the congregation even to understand the stranger’s point, let alone to take it to heart: “It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said” (398).…

    • 1369 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They are trying to get people to sign up for the indentured servant program. Pennsylvania was one of the best places for indentured servants. The indentured servant program would get you a ride over there and you would have to work four years, then you would be free to go on your way. The investigation says, “An acquaintance in Pennsylvania has just sent you a packet of documents about the colony. It contains an offer for paid passage to Pennsylvania in exchange for a four year term of service.” (Pg. 41) Then they want us to figure out if we would make the trip to Pennsylvania to become a Quaker.…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    John C Calhoun's Success

    • 1708 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Life is not only stranger than fiction, but frequently also more tragic than any tragedy ever conceived by the most fervid imagination. Often in these tragedies of life there is not one drop of blood to make us shudder, nor a single event to compel the tears into the eye. A man endowed with an intellect far above the average, impelled by a high-soaring ambition, untainted by any petty or ignoble passion, and guided by a character of sterling firmness and more than common purity, yet, with fatal illusion, devoting all…

    • 1708 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    William Faulkner once said: “The past is never dead, it is not even past." This still holds truth today. Decades and even centuries on, our uncomfortable historical legacies have lingered on, troubling most of us, and shadowing the peace and stability of the world. For one thing, the enormous contrast between the past and the present has given birth to confusion and thus self-contradiction inside many countries. Russians, for example, are ambitious to rebuild their past while still feeling shame about the Yeltsin years. This coexistence of both pride and inferior complex composes ambivalence, which further leads to the at-times irrationality and overhaste in Russia’s conduct. For another, sufferings in the past have factored in hatred and hostility at the present. One of the latest examples lies in this year’s East Asia, where the emergence of a range of territorial disputes rooted in history has provoked more broadly mutual hatred that had prevailed for long. A bloodier example is the enduring conflicts between Pakistan and Israel, in which the intertwining history has accounted for the death of tens of thousands. The past seems holding our world back, hampering it from stepping into the future.…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    We are also told how contagious conflict and the 'ancient grudge' can be, ‘civil blood makes civil hands unclean’. The choice of the word 'civil' shows that the 'grudge' has gone beyond private and spread into society, highlighting how infectious it can be. Moreover, the word 'blood' implies death, proving the dangerous consequences of conflict both physically and mentally. Furthermore, the word ‘unclean’ reminds the audience of blood stains which yet again remind us of the deadly consequences of conflict, and also the long term effects of conflict, like the scars and the lingering guilt.…

    • 3005 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Candides Journey

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Throughout Candide’s childhood he is nurtured with the philosophy of “everything is for the best”. Mastor Pangloss exemplifies Leibniz’s philosophy of optimism. This philosophy focuses on the idea that everything happens for a reason and this world must be the best of all worlds. During Candide’s life he related the idea of “everything is for the best” meaning everything is for “his” best and fulfilling a “happy ever after” in his own daily life. Does Candide stick to Pangloss’s teachings? Candide finds it a challenge whether to accept or deny Pangloss’s philosophy as time progresses, and experiences he goes through putting to the test the philosophy he grew up with. Candide runs into a man who sits him down and shares with him a tragic story. This man goes on to tell him that his parents cut off his hand and leg as a form of punishment and discipline. Candide begins to question Pangloss’s teachings, “Oh Pangloss… you had no notion of these abominations! I’m through; I must give up your optimism after all” (40). “What’s optimism? Said Cacambo. Alas, said Candide, it’s a mania for saying things are well when one is in hell” (40). This quote shows the first sign of Candide maturing by seeing that Pangloss’s theory isn’t always right, by proving everything isn’t always for the best.…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Open Boat Symbolism

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men that was here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him. They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they were friends, friends in a more curiously iron-bound degree than may be common…there was this comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his life. But no one said that it was so. No one mentioned it”.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “'We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the polluted priest! That old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin.'” (150)…

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    And he does not have mere ‘a straw’ to find quarrel but ‘a father killed, a mother stained’. In this perspective, he compares and contrasts himself with the young Fortinbras. He sets him as an example for finding quarrels for the sake of name and honour. And then comes the resolution…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Las Ruinas Del Corazon

    • 68 Words
    • 1 Page

    She preserved the body of her dead husband. Also, she decided to eat parts of her husband's dead body. By this, she was able to merge death and life. She was able to have a spiritual union with his lost husband. Love is crazy, indeed.…

    • 68 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays