The Confrontation of Two Visions in “Benito Cereno”

In “Benito Cereno,” a text of vision surfeit with visual actions, even the slight observation can lead to survival itself, while the two groups—white and black—confront each other through visions. The performance of seeing can be divided into several categories in the text: the imaginary vision, the symbolic vision, and the gaze. The imaginary vision formed by projecting the interior coherence of narcissistic consciousness onto the exterior visual field provides the observers with transparence and satisfaction: at the sight of the vessel the Bachelor’s Delight Delano seems clear of any doubts. The symbolic vision contains social discourses related to observing: Delano senses disorders aboard the San Dominick from the then-dominant perspectives of discipline, class consciousness, and race ideology. The gaze transgressive against the linear vision of the imaginary and the symbolic offers uncertainty, arousing doubt and anxiety. Benito Cereno is afflicted by the traumatic effect induced by Babo’s gazing behavior. Delano is also entrapped in complete incertitude: he misinterprets his surroundings because of both the disseminating gaze and his adherence to the imaginary and symbolic sights. He not only vacillates under the gaze of Cereno, but also sinks into doubt because some blacks are beyond his symbolic control. Babo is also affected by the gaze from Benito Cereno or Delano, although he can still exercise power. The blacks, despite being the primary movers of gazing, are also swayed by the gaze of the whites on the ship. They are, in fact, in an ironically theatrical situation in which they should imitate the earlier slavery but also stand off from the play and exert surveillance. At times, in an attempt to threaten the whites, they overreach the mimesis intentionally, employing a parodic mimesis or wielding an aggressive mimesis. Too much raveled up, no character in this text can escape the double effects of the above visions, whereby their intentions come into conflict with unpredictable variables. Above all, the boundary line between two races is encroached by vague and strange functions of uncertainty. In the end, the taut confrontation encounters with scotoma in the visual fields, rendering all the characters unstable.