Le Sage, Gray Beard: The Kind of Innocent, Kind of Nasty, Pirate King

Both Herman Melville’s The Encantadas and Benito Cereno dispel purity by giving flaws to natural landscapes where other authors would have found attraction, and to characters seemingly well intentioned but either dim or sinisterly motivated. This focus on the meridian, the middle ground where each virtue is countered by its vice and each man has the capacity to pursue a less than noble goal as well as to be righteous and honest, is Melville’s approach to our given question of American innocence. It seems safe to say Melville believes this purity, this naivety to be gone, even uninteresting as he mutes the Galapagos Islands which have been called “no less enthralling” by the National Geographic publication. As Captain Delano mistrusts and misinterprets, as Benito Cereno accompanies a slaver, as Babo attempts murder, and as the Enchanted Islands are made desolate, Melville pairs any seemingly positive intention or mysterious local with a slightly cynical, but extremely realistic view. This counteraction hints at an objective perspective Melville pursues as if by balancing something normally thought of as wholesome or righteous with its darker, frightening possibilities is where the actual world resides.