As the note tells you, Emerson had always been anti-slavery, but this speech marked the beginning of his taking a more public role in the abolitionist movement. Although the conflict over slavery posed an obvious threat to the nation, Emerson demonstrates his usual optimism and faith in the power of reason. How effective are his arguments against slavery in this essay? To approach the question from a more practical angle, on whom would these arguments be likely to be effective?
In Benito Cereno, Melville employs third-person limited narration. Third-person means the story’s narrator is not a character in the story; he — or it, if we think of a third-person narrator as a disembodied voice rather than a whole person — stands outside of the story; limited means that the narrator tells us the thoughts of only one character, in this case Amasa Delano. What is unusual in this story is how confined readers are to Delano’s perception and interpretation of what he sees. Only rarely does the narrator step outside of Delano’s view of the action, and many of those comments are to the effect of Delano’s essential decency and moral goodness. Does Melville give readers any indication that Delano may not be the most reliable witness of the events described, or even morally spotless? If so, how? Why would Melville choose this form of narration?
Over the course of the novella, Melville makes many historical, religious, and cultural references in passing without commenting on their significance in any way. We may consider them merely ways of making his description more vivid and richly imaginative. Yet these references are so frequent and carry such relevant possible implications that readers may start to think that Melville is speaking to us in a kind of code. Examine one or more of these references and consider its implications.
As I have said, context matters. In this case, Melville wrote Benito Cereno for Putnam’s Monthly Magazine; the novella was published over three consecutive issues in 1855. Putnam’s was a new magazine (its first issue had appeared in 1853) that published on politics, art, culture, and science; it had published several pro-abolition pieces, including a laudatory review of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Melville was writing for other magazines at this time, but he consistently sent Putnam’s his most potentially controversial works. (They published everything he sent them, with the exception of one story that the editors thought would offend religious readers.) How should the publication of Benito Cereno in Putnam’s influence our reading of the text, if at all?