헤겔의 주인-노예 변증법으로 읽는 베니토 세레노 수업 사례

Close-Reading Benito Cereno through Hegel’s Master-Slave Discourse: A Case Study

This essay offers a case study of teaching Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno in a university classroom. Drawing on Hegel’s Master-Slave Discourse as a frame of analysis, the essay close-reads three fictional and “unnecessary” scenes in Benito Cereno—the Atufal chain charade, the shaving scene, and Babo’s leap from the San Dominick—that mark the novella’s departure from Amasa Delano’s original narrative. By close-reading these scenes, the students came to understand the nature of Babo’s desire for recognition that vanquishes his desire for freedom. Further discussion led to the conclusion that Benito Cereno, instead of conceiving slavery as a racial issue, represents it as a condition. The real problem of slavery lies in the fact that it pulls the slave as well as the master into its dynamics.