Herman Melville: Literary works

Herman Melvilles writing was, most of all, influenced by the strict Calvinism of the
Dutch Reformed Church with its doctrine of predestination. He could never free
himself from the sense of mans imperfection and ominous fate looming over mans
life. Another important influences are the sea voyages he took aboard a series of
whalers, which provided material for his books and gave a definite shape to his
thought. He had a great affinity for the exotic and the fantastic, as well as for the
spacious and mysterious aspects of nature. The sea itself, the drastic changes in the
seascape, the cruelty, the threat of mutinies, the injustice and cruelty of justice, the
exotic, the pastoral and the idyllic existence of the natives were all part of Melvilles
experience that he brought into his works. His experience as a common sailor made
Melville believe that no mind could ever be free from the sense of imperfection and
ill fate that the Calvinistic idea of the original sin emphasizes. In 1850 he stated this
attitude in his work, Hawthorne and His Mosses. Melvilles works were highly
influenced by Hawthornes, as the two were very close and shared similar
philosophies.
Having returned from the South Seas, Melville wrote seven novels in six years. The
first two novels, Typee and Omoo are both picaresque tales based on Melvilles own
sea experiences, full of vivid descriptions and memorable documentation of evils
wrought by the Christianizers. In both novels he gives detailed descriptions of
primitive man and his customs, his government and religion. They both depict mans
everlasting quest for the Garden of Eden and glorify Rousseaus idea of the noble
savage. However, the Eden proves to be illusory and Melvilles protagonists cannot
survive in such world, devoid of any life of the mind or of the spirit.
Mardy is his next romance, published in 1849. In this mixture of a conventional
adventure tale, mild satire and allegory, Melville describes an imaginary archipelago
in the South Pacific, which is supposed to represent various countries. The central
character is in a search of a symbol of innocence, beauty and perfection, which is
reminiscent of the quest for the Holy Grail. However, he discovers that there is a
difference between appearance and reality and that the world of mortals is evil, both
physically and morally. The book is today almost unreadable except for a rarely
dedicated lover of antiquarian literary, philosophical, metaphysical and political
mixture.
The search for certitude, truth and moral harmony continues in the next two novels,
Redburn and White Jacket. Fictional autobiographies based on Melvilles experiences.
Both novels deal with initiation of young men into the world of evil and abound in
realistic detail, even though the journey is more important for the moral quest that
the realistic descriptions. The discovery of the self is reached through a direct
confrontation with the harsh reality; the journey ends with the destruction of the old
self and rebirth into the world of adulthood. Both books were reminiscent of
Robinson Crusoe and other works by Daniel Defoe.

Moby Dick, Melvilles masterpiece, was published in 1851. At first it was not very
well accepted as the audience thought it to be a plain sea-story spoiled by frequent,
irrelevant, gloomy meditations. However, it is an American epic based on the
archetypical myth of the frontier and the quest for ideal, about the alienation
brought about by the search of the ideal, a book about the Emersonian ideal of selfreliance and individualism, epic that celebrates the ideals of equality and
brotherhood. Above all, it is a metaphysical search of the absolute order of things as
they stand in the mind of God, or a God-like man. It is difficult to classify it into one
genre, as here we have mixed straightforward narrative, fictionalized autobiography,
factual accounts of whaling, scientific realism, along with the legends and
mythology, moral and philosophical speculations, dramatic techniques and, above
all, epic. As an American epic, it celebrates customs, ideas occupations, people and
the ideals that characterize the 19th century American scene. The courageousness,
skill, expediency, self-sufficiency the coarseness, strength, inquisitiveness, and
above all the restless, nervous energy and the dominant and rebellious individualism
of the main protagonists epitomize the basic traits of the American frontier
character.
The next novel, Pierre, deals with love, incest and death. Rather that placing his
characters in the sea setting, Melville chooses to place them in real situations,
where they deal with their everyday involvements and moral dilemmas. During the
1850, Melville wrote stories for magazines. They were collected and published in
1856 in The Piazza Tales, and among them the most successful and famous ones are
Bartleby the Scrivener and Benito Cereno. Bartleby the Scrivener is as
autobiographical work dramatizing Melvilles literary failure. At the same time it
communicates mans sense of alienation and inability to establish meaningful
communication with other men and mocks the absurdity of Thoreaus idea of civil
disobedience. Benito Cereno was written under the threat of the Civil War and is
Melvilles contribution to the great slavery debate. The thematic structure of the
story transcends the immediate political and social occasion and essentially deals
with the nature of evil that springs from the dichotomy of appearance and reality. It
is a story of deception and self-deception and the evil that the story embodies
derives its overwhelming terror from the fact that its source is hidden behind the
masked world which makes it impossible to deal with.
After The Piazza tales, Melville published The Confidence Man, a pessimistic book of
a disillusioned man, written in the form of a comedy. Melville here questions the
value of the entire moral system of Western man. His last work, Billy Budd was
published posthumously, in 1924. The story is set in Europe, after the French
Revolution, and it offers Melvilles final statement of his chief themes- the relation
between good and evil and the relationship between innocence and experience. The
epitome of Melvilles final vision of human predicament might be considered to be
his long, philosophical poem Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. It is
regarded as Americas most thoughtful contribution to the conflict of religious faith
and Darwinism scepticism that obsessed English contemporaries. Its main

protagonist is another of Melvilles seekers for truth. The journey ends with a
realization that all men, if they are to accept their humanity and remain human,
must become living cross-bearers, balanced, rather that defiant and destructive, not
withdrawing, but involved, life-living and intricately wise.

The character of Captain Delano

Captain Amasa Delano is one of the three central characters in Melvilles story
Benito Cereno. Even though he is not the title character, Delano is in the focus of
the story, as the narration is limited to his point of view. The function of this is to
provide the dramatic irony, but more importantly to enable the readers to explore
his thought process and understanding, or rather misunderstanding of the
conditions on board the San Dominick.
The plot of the story begins when Captain Delano boards the ship in order to help
the crew and the passengers, but he does not realise that in fact there has been a
mutiny before his arrival on the ship and that the situation is not in fact as it seems.
The implication that Captain is a trusting, good-hearted sort of fellow, given at the
beginning, starts to sound ironic and as the narration progresses, we start to
question his innocence, for it appears that it does not apply to all things. For
example, he compares Negros at one occasion to Newfoundland dogs and calls them
stupid, expressing his prejudice that Whites are superior to the Negroes. We can
also see the intra-white racism at work when he judges of the Spanish Captain,
Cereno. Delanos racism is even more evident when he praises the mulatto who
serves them lunch by suggesting that mixing white blood with black improves the
black. However, Melville does not criticise his behaviour openly, but rather leaves it
for the readers to decide whether Delanos nature is truly innocent or not.
Delano does notice a few unusual occurrences: the lack of discipline, strange
proportion of whites in comparison to blacks, poor maintenance of the vessel, and
ominous attitude of the six Ashantees who polish their rusty hatchets, and so on.
Thus, from the very beginning Delano has a problem of trying to make sense of the
signs around him. Delano relies on his reasoning and experience, but they only offer
the illusion of reality and certainty. Different rationalisations of the signs he makes
lead to the misinterpretation of the whole situation. These rationalisations become
the focus of the story, as we try to understand why he makes them and why he
responds to the whole situation in the way he does.
The disorder he notices on board Delano ascribes to the Spaniards poor leadership.
According to Delano, Cereno displays lack of energy and conviction, characteristic of
the aristocratic Catholic Old World. On the other hand, Delano is attracted to his
Negro servants fidelity, that is, according to him, an expression of natural order.
Such racist reasoning and behaviour are in a way reasonable and understandable if
we keep in mind that the story is set in 1799, the time when nobody in Delanos

position could have suspected that the Spanish captain was in constant and
immediate danger of losing his life if he had given the slightest indication that the
things were not as they seemed. Who would have thought that an uneducated black
slave from Africa could have organized a rebellion and established order on the
ship? Thus, captains behaviour results from the common world view of the
Northerners of the time: ignorance of the blacks, the feeling of superiority over
others and optimism. New World or not, the rationalisations he makes have failed
him. Even more striking is the fact that he, after everything is revealed at the end
seems to have learned nothing, and his character remained equally clueless as it
was in the beginning.
Captain Delanos character served as a mirror to the American readers of the time
when the story was written. They themselves possessed similar racial prejudices
that spoiled their reasoning. Melville thus, by depicting Delanos character, here
warns his readers of the power of expectations and appearance in forming opinions,
but also how these opinions are difficult, or even impossible to change once formed.
There is no doubt that Delano saw America itself as an ascendant trading and
military power, and Spain as fading Imperial one. However, what Melville is trying to
do is to warn his American reader that the same may happen to them if they are not
cautious. Melville deliberately depicts Cerenos ship so as to symbolically resemble
America, but Captain Delano does not notice the similarity. The symbolism of the
words follow your leader, written in chalk on the ship might read as follows: if you
follow your leader (America following Spain, where Spain in this case stands for
Europe) in struggling to subdue those different from yourself (other races
represented by the dark satyr hanging from the ship) you will finish only in a
struggle to death (as the figures show). The suggestion that America risks going the
way of the San Dominick if it follows the Spanish in its reliance to slavery is powerful
and explicit.
Benito Cereno: The Character of Benito

This man is the main protagonist and the bearer of the title of the novella Benito
Cereno. It is a story by Herman Melville concerning the behavior of slave owners
towards the slaves, meaning the black people. It was written in 1855 at the time
when people were discussing whether slavery should be abolished or not. It is often
thought that slave trade was started by America, but actually the Europeans were
the ones who started this tradition.
Our central point in this essay will be Benito himself. He comes from Spain where he
made his fortune on selling human beings, more precisely, slaves. Actually, Benito is
not the owner of the ship we encounter him on, but only a servant himself. He is the
lead in charge of the ship. Consequently, he seems more of a victim then a villain.

In the beginning Cerano seems rather a strange man, very nervous and strangely
aloof; his behavior confuses Delano, the captain of another ship. However, Delano
understands that Cereno's behavior is a result of the trouble Cereno and his ship
have suffered. Don Benito, as he is often called, is constantly assisted by his Negro
servant, Babo. Babo seems like a faithful dog, and never does he leave his master
on his own.
However, there is something very odd about the relationship between Babo and
Benito. The reader understands why Cereno's eyes go glassy for a moment when
Delano asks him what has happened to his ship; Cereno is trying to remember the
story Babo told him to tell if asked. When Babo shows Cereno the bloody razor, the
reader understands his terror - Babo is threatening him. This situation is not easy to
notice because one would expect that a white person would have authority over a
black one, but obviously the situation is different. So, the reader is tricked into
believing that Babo simply maintains the images of other slaves of the day. Melville
uses these slave conventions as a literary tool to create a non-conformist character
of color.
Benito was extremely shattered after all this evil, he could not bear to look at Babo
anymore. Also, he could not bring himself to go home, but rather retired to a
monastery accompanied by the monk Infelez. His knowledge of evil has robbed him
even of the will to live and because of this fact, three months later Benito dies.
Captain Delano tries to comfort him before passing away, telling him to forget about
the situation which is tormenting him, but Captain Benito answers that those who
are not tormented by their memories, those who forget them are not human. This
problem Benito Cereno has is caused by being a Yankee representative where he
does not allow himself to be dragged out of his self-complacency. He constructs his
vision of the world upon his belief in the intellectual superiority of the white man as
well as moral superiority of Americans versus Europeans. Cereno sees the blacks as
natural servants, because they are as he says of a limited mind. Some would
consider Belano a good man, someone who is being tormented and terrorized, but
can he really be viewed that way? In reality, not. How can someone who is originally
trading slaves be a good person of fragile feelings?
When one first start reading this story, one thinks that the main character is captain
Delano but this is not right because his character does not change during the story,
only his awakening to the true relationship of Cereno and the slaves. Rather, the
protagonist is Cereno himself, who falls under "the shadow of the Negro" in the
course of the tale, eventually leading to his death. But upon a first reading, until the
very end, it seems almost certain that the story is going to be Delano's, and Cereno
will be revealed to be some sort of villain. By re-reading the story, the reader can
properly understand Cereno's behavior in any given situation.

Benito is all in all a representation and embodiment of Europe, Spain and the old
world. He brings to us their thoughts, attitudes and views on all important questions
and situations of the time.
Only two sides of a three way story are represented here. Babo is the only one who
has no chance to present his point of view and he has no influence on our opinion.