From reading the first few pages of Benito Cereno, I noticed that the personalities of Captain Delano and Captain Cereno are practically opposites. But most of what we know about Cereno is perceived from Delano's perspective. Do you think this alters the way we see Cereno, either by making him seem "better" than he is becuase Delano sees everyone in the best possible light, or making him seem "worse" than he is becuase it makes us see how much his personality contrasts wtih Delano's?
I think by experiencing the book Benito Cereno through Delanos does alter how we see Cereno. For one thing Delano's perspective is untrustworthy. But I do think that for the most part Delano does try to make Cereno better than he is, even through they are very different in general. I think that Delano wants to see Cereno in a better light, which is why i believe that Delano is always making excuses for Cereno. Instead of arguing with Cereno, Delano thinks that Cereno's reckless decisions are mostly because of a mental illness.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nicki and would like to say that they both are talking to each other in a polite way. That is not usual because captains from strange ships frequently have arguments or fight. But there is also a remark of fighting because Katie and I analyzed the text and found a thing that's amiss (Delano asks Benito Cereno questions about the ship) but his explonation was that he thought that they are planning something against him. So he was afraid of a negative project).
ReplyDeleteFurthermore the analysis produced a lots of new and important things about Delano. All in all we can say that Delano does not trust Benito Cereno.
I'd say that if we completely trust Cereno on what he says, he changes the way we think about Delano. But I also think that when Cereno sees these strange events, first he describes it quite objectively and then he gives us his opinion. So I think that we could think by ourselves too and judge Delano by ourselves. And even then, I agree with Cereno on many points like the fact that Delano as a captain hasn't got the authority over his crew that he should have.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of the story Captain Delano does question some of the things that Benito Cereno does, and compares them to how he would handle similar situations. For instance Benito Cereno's lack of punishment for the blacks on his ship. However, after finishing the story not only do we as the reader now understand the motives behind Benito Cereno's actions, but so does Captain Delano. It shows him that if he had analyzed what was occuring on the ship a little more closely he might not have had so many misinterpretations of Benito at all.
ReplyDeleteAs the readers of the story, we see Cereno through Delano's eyes. I definitely think that this diminishes his character in our view. Delano is constantly labeling Cereno as "odd" or "strange," going so far as to question his mental health and wonder about criminal intent on Cereno's part. However, if we were seeing Cereno's character through the eyes of someone else, Babo, for example, our view his character would be much improved over our view of him through Delano. We would be able to see that all of Cereno's actions were for the protection of himself, his crew, and Delano. His strange behavior was actually a ploy to keep Babo and the slaves from killing them all.
ReplyDeleteBy seeing Cereno through Delano's perspective it is totally not accurate and Delano has no clue what is going on. He doesn't know why Cereno acts the way he does until basically the very end of the book when he finds out that he was basically held like a hostage in a way and was threatened by death. Seeing Cereno from Delano's view gives the reader a really bad perspective of Cereno that isn't accurate.
ReplyDeleteI think that our initial thought of Delano is immediately his cluelessness. Therefore, I think the reader has a clearer idea than Delano does of the mysterious things occurring on the ship. I personally don't think we see Cereno in a different light because of Delano's perception of him. I think we see the main focus of Delano's disregard of how odd the ship is.
ReplyDeletei think that Cerano is seen in a better light because we are looking through Delano's eyes. I think that if we had read the book from an unbiased point of view, we would have recognized what was happening on the ship much more quickly than through Delano's eyes as he is trying to see Cerano in a better light
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