Studies in Short Fiction, March 22nd, 1995
Herman Melville's 'Benito Cereno' is begun by an epilogue that points to the ambiguity of the Deposition which occurs at the end to explain the events of the whole story. The document was used as a literary device to impose a sense of closure, but not to interpret the story in moral terms as some critics have pointed out. Thus, Melville was more realistic in his depiction of history as an erratic and discontinuous movement and not the linear and predictable flow that is traditional with semi-historical works.
There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of bar...
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