Benito Cereno

The ignorance of Captain Delano in Benito Cereno can be accredited to his racist convictions that guide his perception of the ship’s perilous situation. However, is Delano at fault for his racism? When rethinking the racism in Benito Cereno under the context of Althusser’s theories on ideology, racism is an ideology implemented on the subject through the social institution of slavery. Delano’s actions and thoughts throughout Benito Cereno prove that his racism is a result of a socially imposed ideology. His actions and thoughts also challenge the modern ideals of racism that place the blame for racist attitudes entirely on the racist subject. Delano is the subject of a racist ideology and has been forced into that ideology through the social

apparatus of slavery.
A fundamental aspect of ideology is that “an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practices, or practice. The existence is material” (Althusser 695). In Benito Cereno, the ideology of racism uses the institution of slavery as an apparatus for implementing racism. Slavery was a socially imposed practice that trained those who were enslaving others to accept the reality and need for this institution. This ideology forced people into perceiving Africans as wild people who lacked civility, education, and intelligence as a whole. However, as is the function of ideology, the individual being influenced lacks the control to escape from the cyclical nature of the idea being enforced. This system and its power left Delano with a limited capability of questioning the ideology about race imposed by this system of slavery. Along with having a material existence, ideology enacts its power on people that exist as subjects. Athusser states the importance of the subject in ideology when he says, “there is no ideology except by the subject and for the subject” (Althusser 697). While ideology holds immense power over those it influences, it can only exist by the complicit actions of the subject as well. Melville presents Delano as a subject who embraces the ideology of racism around instead of rejecting it. This characteristic of ideology shows that ideology is not self-sustaining since it requires the existence of a subject to act upon for it to fully exist and grow. Althusser believes that “man is an ideological animal by nature,” and is, therefore, ideology is best and most easily implemented on man (698). In the case of Benito Cereno, Captain Delano is the ideal subject for enabling ideology because he does not fight back against the fallacies of racism but ignores the problems and embraces the ideology as a whole until that ideology becomes engrained in his character.
Melville implements this racist ideology in Delano through the means of slavery.

Delano’s actions are representative of the ideology, but Delano’s actions also convey his own personal convictions. Upon first boarding the ship, Delano perceives the men’s action of polishing hatchets as a “peculiar love in negroes of uniting industry with pastime” (Melville 40). It is a fallacy in reasoning to assume that forced manual labor would be something to love or consider a pastime just because a person is a certain race. Delano acknowledges how it is a peculiar idea to consider those ideas to be truth, but he ignores that fleeting moment of clarity and returns to the ideology he knows as truth. When facing the faults of his ideology, Delano turns away and acts as if he has no idea that there is anything wrong. By choosing to not reject racism, Delano embraces it by choice. Ideology does hold immense power over him, but he chooses to bend his will to coincide with that power rather to reject it and stand for something that would right or different. Even considering that his ideology might have flaws is too much for Delano to bear. The ideology of racism takes away the humanity of the slaves and the accountability of those enslaving them by attributing this idea of loving forced labor to the slaves. Beyond his immediate observation of their work, he considers the group he encounters to have “the raw aspect of unsophisticated Africans” (Melville 40). By using the word “raw”, Delano is

creating a connection that the “raw” or natural nature of Africans is to be unsophisticated and that that is a common quality they would possess since it is a part of their natural state (Melville 40). Melville ingrains these ideas into Delano’s psyche to show the effect that this racist ideology has on his perception of the world. Delano’s actions are shaped by racism to the point where racism has taken over his thoughts and actions completely. These moments of racism are a part of the racist ideology and culture that has consumed Delano in Benito Cereno.
Delano is, in some, ways a prisoner of the ideology of racism, but the reality is that, unlike the slaves who have no choice in their enslavement, Delano had the opportunity to fight back and chose to remain silent.

The power enacted on him under Althusser’s ideology is escapable through understanding the condition and situation that the ideology has placed him in. However, Delano does not take the chance for to change or consider change. After Don Benito and Delano escape, Delano asked Benito “‘you are save; what has cast such a shadow upon you?” To this, Don Benito replies saying “‘The negro’” (Melville 107). At the moment, Delano is forced to consider the implications of what Don Benito says, but instead, “there was silence, while the moody man sat, slowly and unconsciously gathering his mantle about him, as if it were a pall. There was no more conversation that day” (Melville 107). Delano refuses his opportunity to accept blame and fault in his racisit ideology and falls prey to the racism that surrounds him. The power of ideology is overwhelming to those who are weak in character and integrity, like Delano. A fundamental aspect of Althusser’s ideology is that “what is represented in ideology is therefore not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations in which they live” (695). This is significant because it rethinks the idea of ideological power being based just in

the physical world and, instead, presents ideological power as being within one’s mind. With this idea, any social structure can then use power of ideology to its fullest extent. Delano’s mind is an example of this ideological system that conditions him to embrace racism. In the beginning of Benito Cereno, Melville describes Delano as “a person of singularity undistrustful good nature, not liable, except on extraordinary and repeated incentives and hardly then, to indulge in personal alarms, any way involving the imputation of malign evil in man” (Melville 36). Melville describes Delano as being unconcerned with or being oblivious to the ill intentions that any person might harbor. His naïvity stops him from seeing not only the true inequality at hand but also the fault in his racist ideology as a whole.
While Delano is not at fault for being the subject of a racist ideology, Melville uses his role in the novella to make a commentary on ideology. In Carol Colatrella’s discourse on the importance of race in both La Cousine Bette and Benito Cereno, Colatrella believes that Melville is “dismantle[ing] the validity of Delano's interpretation and, therefore, the accuracy of his racial stereotypes that slaves are benign when well-managed even if their masters are potentially evil” (Colatrella). Colatrella looks at Delano and his racism as the source of Melville’s primary focus in the novella. The reality of Benito Cereno is that Melville uses Delano as an image for the ideology of racism not just a racist. The scope of Melville’s criticism on racism is not limited just to Delano but expands to the entire ideology of racism and the apparatus of slavery that ideology is implemented through.