Tregre, "Innocence/Ignorance is not Bliss.”, Melville, March 10

The perfect example to reflect Melville's view on innocence is his story, "Benito Cereno." His character Delano was a trusting, naive fellow who finds Cereno's ship damaged and a mess. The entire story, there are obvious warning signs that something is amiss this vessel, but Delano has an innocence and denies everything putting the blame on excuses. At the end, it turns out the slaves took over the ship and Cereno was cooperating by force. Delano's character is a reflection that he was impractical and blind. His innocence was quite annoying and ignorant. If it was not for Cereno, he surely would have lost his life. Melville had a view that the Spanish treatment of the slaves were bad, and though they revolted, the blacks could not be responsible. In the end, the narrator and the deposition were both the white mans. The black man's point of view and opinions were never heard. It was stricly a white person's point of view. The slaves revolted, but it was probably in response to their entrapment. They were not to blame, though they were very smart. The problem of slavery is never dealt with, but the guilt was just assigned to other people, much like the guilt was assigned to Cereno. Cereno was not a good guy because "it is not the adjective, its the noun." (Good Master: The good adjective does not matter, the master is what is bad, the noun of him being in charge of someone is bad, that is the problem). Melville's insightment in this story was quite an eye opener. The problem in the story was not addressed, just like the actual issue of slavery was never addressed. People just turn their eye to the problem and assign blame to another, much like Delano. In this case, innocence was ignorance and not bliss.