Captain Delano In Herman Melville's Benito Cereno

The Naïve Captain Delano
In Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno the main character Captain Amasa Delano struck me as a bit naïve and a bit oblivious throughout the story. Captain Delano appears to be a naïve sea captain because he does not put together the puzzle pieces of the strange behavior of the San Dominick’s crew and history as quickly as one would expect. I believe that Melville is using this concept to hint at the fact that the United States did not realize that slavery was such a problem as quickly as the country should have. Some of the pieces that Captain Delano did not put together as quickly as expected are the fact that the slaves aboard the ship acted strangely and the unusual behavior between Cereno and Babo. I believe the …show more content…
Cereno and Babo have an odd relationship because Babo refuses to leave his “master’s” side and the way Babo attends to Cereno when Cereno and Captain Delano are discussing the San Dominick’s circumstances. Herman Melville writes, “Not unaffected by the close sight of the gleaming steel, Don Benito nervously shuddered, his usual ghastliness was heightened by the lather, which lather, again, was intensified in its hue by the sootiness of the Negro 's body. Altogether the scene was somewhat peculiar, at least to Captain Delano, nor, as he saw the two thus postured, could he resist the vagary, that in the black he saw a headsman, and in the white, a man at the block” (Melville …show more content…
In this incident, I believe that Captain Delano should have seen the abnormal behavior between master and slave. If Cereno had trusted Babo as he claimed, then Cereno would not have shuttered while being shaved. Captain Delano not thinking about why Cereno was shuttering during his shave shows that the Captain was not paying close enough attention to anything and just thought everything strange was because of the struggles and hardships the San Dominick