Fatal underestimation—Sue's Atar-Gull and Melville's "Benito Cereno" - Articles - Herman Melville's 'Benito Cereno' - Eugene Sue's 'Atar-Gull'

Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1998 by John D. Cloy

Eugene Sue and Herman Melville make strong racial statements in their nautical works, Atar-Gull (1) and "Benito Cereno." These pieces, published in 1831 and 1855, respectively, appeared with settings that antedate the abolition of the slave trade. For most whites, both American and European, blacks were a class apart, viewed as little more than cattle or other agricultural property. When considered as human by more liberal thinkers, their mental and emotional capacities were almost universally undervalued. Sue and Melville present in Atar-Gull (a novel) and "Benito Cereno" (a short story) blacks who are superior to most of their white neighbors in intelligence, cunning, patience, and fortitude. These black characters--the eponymous Atar-Gull of Sue's book and Babo in Melville's fiction--are slaves who make effectual use of whites' tendency to underestimate their abilities in order to take diabolical advantage of situations for vengeful purposes. By presenting loyal and subservient exteriors to gullible Caucasians, Atar-Gull and Babo craftily execute murderous revenge on those who enslave them.

Although Babo and Atar-Gull use similar stratagems, their results markedly differ. Babo, who has taken over the vessel commanded by the flaccid Spanish aristocrat, Benito Cereno, fails to complete his plot to capture American captain Amasa Delano's ship and slaughter its crew. Cereno foils the scheme after Delano boards his slaver to relieve the want of the black and white sufferers who have nearly starved in a devastating calm that has paralyzed their movement for several weeks. When Delano launches his boat to return to his own ship, the Bachelor's Delight, Cereno leaps overboard into the skiff to warn the American. Babo follows with homicidal intent, but is captured by Delano's men, who then recapture Cereno's vessel. Babo is executed at Lima for his crimes after his treachery and criminal organizational skill are brought to light. Atar-Gull, however, is totally successful. When his father, an old slave incapable of working, is wrongfully executed by Tom Wil, his English owner, the slave vows revenge. He insinuates himself into the good graces of Wil and his family by assiduous and obsequious services. With the aid of the ferocious Jamaican Maroons, he ruins Wil's crops, has his stock killed, orchestrates his daughter's death from snakebite (which results in his wife's demise from grief), and accompanies his master on a return trip to Europe after his financial ruin. The two settle in Paris, cheaper than Wil's native England, where the old man suffers a paralytic stroke that deprives him of speech. Atar-Gull then reveals his true colors to his horrified owner. Keeping neighbors at bay through a pretense of over-protection, the former slave is viewed by all as a saint, while fiendishly torturing his former master with his gloating hatred and vindictiveness. When Wil mercifully dies, the disappointed Atar-Gull is given a medal by the French citizenry, who are still unaware of his Mephistophelean machinations. (2)

Babo and Atar-Gull belie contemporary notions of blacks' intelligence, implicitly revealing the attitudes of Melville and Sue toward slavery and the supposed inferiority of non-white people. (3) These black characters allow themselves to be perceived as good-natured, harmless, loyal body servants to the white men they both hate and intend to destroy. By far the most resourceful and strongest figures in these works, they bide their time and reinforce their positions through seemingly assiduous care of the intended victims. Melville's American captain, Amasa Delano, reflects the then-current view of most whites regarding slaves as lesser entities. (4) He sees the "peculiar institution" as part of the established order of things: conventional and therefore unalterable, certainly not requiring alteration. The demarcation between black and white is so great that Delano cannot even conceive of an equal association between the races. When he initially becomes uneasy at the strange happenings aboard Cereno's vessel (perhaps suggesting some evil collusion between Babo and the Spanish captain), the San Dominick, the American reassures himself by some "rational" reasoning:

   The whites, too, by nature, were the shrewder race. A man with some evil
   design, would not he be likely to speak well of that stupidity which was
   blind to his depravity, and malign that intelligence from which it might be
   hidden? Not unlikely, perhaps. But if the whites had dark secrets
   concerning Don Benito, could then Don Benito be any way in complicity with
   the blacks? But they were too stupid. Besides, who ever heard of a white so
   far a renegade as to apostatize from his very species almost, by leaguing
   in against it with negroes? ("Benito Cereno" 45)

In a twist of racial position and power, both black characters become essentially the masters of their white overlords. Babo and his mutineers hold Cereno and the crew of the San Dominick hostage, their lives dependent on their good behavior while Delano and his men are aboard. Since the Spaniards have seen graphic samples of the Africans' handiwork on some of their less fortunate shipmates, they fearfully acquiesce. Atar-Gull's domination of Wil is more subtle. He succeeds by guile, and not until the old colonist is paralyzed and rendered mute by a stroke does his former bondsman declare himself. After cataloging for the horrified old invalid all the evils he has perpetrated, Atar-Gull delivers his masterstroke: