SOURCE: “Masquerades of Language in Melville's Benito Cereno,” in Arizona Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 2, Summer, 1988, pp. 5-21.

In the following essay, Hauss probes the link between language and political oppression in “Benito Cereno.”

… the principle relic of faded grandeur was the ample oval of the shield-like stern-piece, intricately carved with the arms of Castille and Leon, medallioned about by groups of mythological or symbolical devices; uppermost and central of which was a dark satyr in a mask, holding his foot on the prostrate neck of a writhing figure, likewise masked.¹

This image, on the stern of the Spanish slave-ship in Melville's “Benito Cereno,” focuses the central subject of Melville's story—masquerade. At the same time, it embodies the story's central insights. Masquerades, constructed of various “mythological and symbolical devices,” are enacted to shield structures of social control. The stern-piece, “medallioned about” with such devices, is a large oval described...