Beyond Silence and Realism: Trauma and the Function of Ghosts in Absalom, Absalom! and Beloved (Critical Essay‪)‬

If we can agree that human slavery, as it was practiced in the United States and the Caribbean, paradoxically shares with the Holocaust a unique status, a quality of being particularly atrocious beyond the realm of realistic or rational representation, we might be tempted to speak nothing but respectful silence in the face of these historical events. (1) And there are, in certain literary novels and stories that allude to these atrocities, gestures or attempts to "speak" such silences. The ending of Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno" is an example. In the story, Benito Cereno, a Spanish captain of a slave ship, survives a revolt on board led by Babo, one of the slaves. Captain Delano, an American, boards the ship during the revolt but does not know that the slaves have taken control. The slaves pretend to be in the custody or charge of the Spanish officers while the American is on board, but the roles of both groups have in fact been reversed. Later, after the revolt is put down, and Cereno has survived, he falls into despair. Knowing now the conditions of those he has enslaved, conditions he had previously never considered much less experienced, Cereno loses his faith in humanity and universal order. He cannot share Delano's relief that they have survived the ordeal: "You are saved," cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished and pained; "you are saved: what has cast such a shadow upon you?"