Theme Of Revolution In Benito Cereno

The idea of revolution is generally regarded as a controversial idea. In today’s times especially, we tend to have differing views of the concept, depending on who is revolting against what. Many American citizens tend to view their revolution against the British government as a noble and just fight for liberty, yet refuse to allow marginalized groups within their own society to fight for their rights which they still have not been given, in particular people of color, women, and the LGBTQ+ community. This conflicting view of revolution has existed throughout history. In addition, several different visions of “revolution” have been studied and written about. Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto describes a social revolution, while in Benito Cereno, Melville illustrates a violent slave revolt. Although the concepts of these revolutions do have their differences, they both encompass the idea of a disenfranchised group rising up against their oppressors. In their Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels foretell an uprising of the working class, or proletariat, against their upper class oppressors, the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels argue that this overthrow is the only logical outcome of an eternity of oppression by society’s elite. One of their main arguments is that all of the working class should join together to overcome their …show more content…
By the time the Communist Manifesto and Benito Cereno were published, the world had witnessed many revolutions, including the American, the French, the Haitian, and the Latin American Wars of Independence. In this time period from the late 18th to mid 19th centuries, a large number of monarchies were overthrown and replaced with democracies and republics. These writings reflect those changes in the world’s dynamic and the shift from absolute power to power with the