Open AccessConstruction of Whiteness and Blackness in Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno
Author(s) -
Klara Szmańko
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
res rhetorica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2392-3113
DOI - 10.29107/rr2020.4.9
Subject(s) - narrative , indeterminacy (philosophy) , interpretation (philosophy) , object (grammar) , context (archaeology) , historiography , subject (documents) , romance , philosophy , aesthetics , viewpoints , literature , situational ethics , history , epistemology , art , linguistics , computer science , visual arts , archaeology , library science
Rather than resist slavery directly, the narrative world of Benito Cereno disperses the rejection of tyranny through the intricate construction of subject-object relations, the situational context, Benito Cereno’s stifled, semi-articulated statements, the imagery of the narrative and its complex narrative structure. Through silences, multiple viewpoints, innuendos, refusal to solve certain issues definitely while being explicit about this indeterminacy, Melville’s narrative not only inscribes itself in the Romantic questioning of historiography, but also gestures towards postmodernist inconclusiveness and the writerly text in which the reader is invited to be its co-author who fills out the gaps and silences with their own interpretation.