- Oct 2018
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allred720fa18.commons.gc.cuny.edu allred720fa18.commons.gc.cuny.edu
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Benito Cereno
THE INTERESTING NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF OLAUDAH EQUIANO, OR GUSTAVUS VASSA, THE AFRICAN. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. (1789) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15399/15399-h/15399-h.htm
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about.
... I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself. ... from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African (1789) by Olaudah Equiano https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15399/15399-h/15399-h.htm
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man.
… When I looked round the ship too and saw a large furnace or copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate; and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. … from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African (1789) by Olaudah Equiano https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15399/15399-h/15399-h.htm
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nations.
… The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror when I was carried on board. I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, … from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African (1789) by Olaudah Equiano https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15399/15399-h/15399-h.htm
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come
… The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror when I was carried on board. I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, … from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African (1789) by Olaudah Equiano https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15399/15399-h/15399-h.htm
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Upon a still nigher approach, this appearance was modified, and the true character of the vessel was plain–a Spanish merchantman of the first class, carrying negro slaves, amongst other valuable freight, from one colonial port to another.
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being unwilling to add to the confusion of the decks.
It's those moments that make me confused concerning the point from which this story is narrated. This seems to be in Delano's viewpoint, staying close to how he might explain his behavior, whereas the more critical/abstracted narrator (who we have encountered before) might add that he also might not want to "expose" "his men" to the "confusion" on the ship.
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But if that story was not true, what was the truth? That the ship had unlawfully come into the Spaniard’s possession?
Refers back to Jenna's comment / quote about him not being able to imagine a revolution.
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he began to feel a ghostly dread of Don Benito.
Is it due the increasing lack of identification he can feel towards the other white captain?
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the ship’s so long drifting about.
I think it would be interesting to look more into the role "the ship" plays in this novella. It's the site that makes all of this possible, like a cut-off "land"/"state"/"society" that has it's own rules which can be changed, object of a revolution "the rest of the world" can't intervene in. At the same time it's interesting how the ship, being exposed to harsh weather, becomes associated with a "state of nature" like condition. ---> Delano interprets it this way: the to him strange society he encounters on the ship derives from the hardships "the ship" has undergone due to the weather and a failure of the "white leadership", instead of the suffering of the enslaved people and them having undertaken a successful revolution.
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These Captain Delano could not but ascribe, in the main, to the absence of those subordinate deck-officers to whom, along with higher duties, is intrusted what may be styled the police department of a populous ship.
The ship as a "city", a "sate", a metaphor for society.
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the San Dominick’s suffering
It's interesting how often the "suffering" is described or taken as an explanation for what happens/happened / for how Delano makes sense of what he discovers—and he's kind of right in his analysis, just that he's not ascribing the suffering to the enslaved people, and doesn't understand the suffering as deriving from their enslavement.
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But be all this as it might, whether Don Benito’s manner was designed or not, the more Captain Delano noted its pervading reserve, the less he felt uneasiness at any particular manifestation of that reserve towards himself.
Striking! It's the first time I feel like the narrating voice is getting "close" to Delano. It is clearly revealed that he identifies with Benito and how his behavior makes him (Delano) feel uncomfortable rather than Delano's thoughts being presented from a distant, nearly "objectivity-pretending" point of view. I think we can learn a lot more about Delano's character from this sentence than he himself might be willing to admit.
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indulgent as he was at the first, in judging the Spaniard, he might not, after all, have exercised charity enough
This impression might be fortified by English not being my first language, but sometimes, like here, I'm wondering if Melville is displaying Delano in a clearly ironic, slightly mocking way? (I hope I'm not embarrassing myself with this comment.)
This is also just one example for the general difficulties I face with assessing the "tone" of this text. Sometimes I wonder if (or I'm actually pretty sure that) Melville is alluding to attitudes / clichés I don't know or can't understand because I know to little about the discourses of the time he lived and wrote in. (Which is why I find it very hard to do "yahoo"-annotations here, I would really need a research-based annotated version.)
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her
Was it common to address a ship as "her" in those times, or is it even now in English? Or is this a stylistic choice Melville made, a personalization of the ship? In any case, it's a very strong picture. (See also in the next paragraph: "...it seemed hard to decide whether she meant to come in or no–what she wanted, or what she was about."
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faculty.georgetown.edu faculty.georgetown.edu
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I also know that I cannot re-write them (that it is impossible today to write 'like that') and this knowledge, depressing enough, suffices to cut me off from the production of these works
I am wondering about the relationship between text and e.g. a painting, a photograph etc. here—or could a painting also be a text in Barthes's understanding here? The thought came to my mind, because this description reminds me of the sadness I often experience when I encounter paintings in museums: I would argue that this form of art is very hard to grasp, very un-democratic, because I am stuck in the position of the "consumer". I cannot read a painting out loud, I cannot really copy it, I cannot paint on (annotate) it....
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reading and writing were equally privileges of class
Just 2 notes/annotations as I would write them in the margins of a book:
- book as means of democratization
- internet goes even further
(Ha, and if this was an actual book, I would have now drawn an arrow from "democratization" to the next sentence by Barthes, who is then also mentioning "democracy".)
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the I which writes the text, it too, is never more than a paper-I.
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (once again): "Once I produce, once I write, it is the Text itself which (fortunately) disposseses me of my narrative continuity. The Text can recount nothing; it takes my body elsewhere, far from my imaginary person, toward a kind of memoryless speech which is already the speech of the People, of the non-subjective mass (or of the generalized subject), even if I am still separated form it by my way of writing."
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his life is no longer the origin of his fictions but a fiction contributing to his work; there is a reversion of the work on to the life (and no longer the contrary)
...because once in this world, the text is it's own object/subject? Anyway, this is a beautiful thought.
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t is not that the Author may not 'come back' in the Text, in his text, but he then does so as a 'guest'. If he is a novelist, he is inscribed in the novel like one of his characters, figured in the carpet; no longer privileged, paternal, aletheological, his inscription is ludic.
A reference to the "Death of the Author" (Barthes, 1967) too?
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there may be 'text' in a very ancient work, while many products of contemporary literature are in no way texts
If only he would provide examples!
--- This also brings Benjamin's differentiation between communication (storytelling) and information to mind. I wonder where Barthes would locate his understanding of text within Benjamin's conception of information.
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new object and a new language neither of which has a place in the field of the sciences that were to be brought peacefully together
It might seem like a pretty basic insight, but I have never read someone so clearly stating that disciplines develop entire languages (as opposed to the use of certain terms), and I think it's important to be aware of this as scholars.
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It is a fact that over the last few years a certain change has taken place (or is taking place) in our conception of language and, consequently, of the literary work which owes at least its phenomenal existence to this same language
I'm wondering if there has ever been a time in human history where this assessment could not have been made? If I wouldn't just have read that this was published in 1977, I would've thought it was written yesterday.
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The intertextual in which every text is held, it itself being the text-between of another text, is not to be confused with some origin of the text: to try to find the 'sources', the 'influences' of a work, is to fall in with the myth of filiation; the citations which go to make up a text are anonymous, untraceable, and yet already read: they are quotations without inverted commas.
If the internet (I mean the actual internet) would have a subtitle, this could be it, right?! Or at least: this seems to be a description as well as an analysis of a lot of writing/commenting/etc. that happens online.
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paradoxical
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (1975/77): "The Doxa speaks, I hear it, but I am not within its space. A man of paradox, like any writer, I am indeed behind the door; certainly I should like to pass through, certainly I should like to see what is being said, I too participate in the communal scene; I am constantly listening to what I am excluded from; I am in a stunned state, dazed, cut off from the popularity of language." (p.123)
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doxa
Roland Barthes in Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (1975/77): "The Doxa (a word which will often recur) is Public Opinion, the mind of the majority, petit bourgeois Consensus, the Voice of Nature, the Violence of Prejudice. We can call (using Leibnitz's word) a doxology any way of speaking adapted to appearance, to opinion, or to practice." (p.47)
(I know this is by far not enough to understand his use of the term, but maybe a helpful starting point?)
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