Melville and the Problem of Evil 101
has been placed by most recent critics with his very best
work; at least one competent critic has called it the finest
short story ever written. The problem of evil seems not only
to have been the magnet that drew Melville; within its strange
field he was several times stimulated to higher levels of
artistry than elsewhere.
The story of “Benito Cereno,” like indeed these other
stories of Melville, is simple. Its greatness lies in the con-
summate artistry of its expression of a profound theme, the
vivid vitalization of eternal abstractions. Off the coast of
Chile Captain Amasa Delano of a Yankee vessel meets a
Spanish slave ship in obvious distress. He boards her and
learns of her sufferings from storm and disease and her pres-
ent shortage of water. In his conversations with her captain,
Don Benito Cereno, he becomes suspicious; he is oppressed
by an intangible feeling that something more than has been
told him is wrong on the Spanish ship, and he muses over
something obscure in the relations between the Spanish cap-
tain and his apparently devoted black body-servant, Babo.
Yet he understands nothing until, as he is in his own boat
bidding farewell to Don Benito, the Spanish captain sud-
denly jumps over the side and into the Yankee boat, followed
by Babo, who aims a dagger at Don Benito’s heart. It is
revealed that the slaves, under the leadership of the decep-
tive Babo, have revolted and seized the Spanish ship and that
all that has happened since Delano came aboard has been
carefully staged to prevent his learning the truth.
The technique of developing suspense and atmosphere is
masterful, and, as you may have suspected, every detail is
chosen to illuminate broader meanings. In interpretation
here I draw freely upon a study of the story published in the
Virginia Quarterly Review by Professor Stanley Williams of
Yale. Let us look at the three principal characters. Babo, the