Benito Cereno (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)

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Places Discussed

*Chile. South American country off whose coast the American whaling ship Bachelor’s Rest encounters the Spanish slave ship San Dominick, whose slaves have mutinied and taken control, in the harbor of a small island. By setting his story in the southernmost extreme of the known world, Herman Melville dramatizes the racial tensions inherent in the southern United States during the same period. In an attempt to gain the confidence of Captain Amasa Delano of the Bachelor’s Rest, the rebel slaves pretend still to be prisoners and...

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