In “The Grammar of Narrative,” a chapter of his longer work, The Poetics of Prose, Tzvetan Todorov describes the simplest “minimal complete plot” as consisting of “ in the transition from one equilibrium to another. An “ideal” story begins with a stable situation that is disrupted by a power or force. This results in a state of imbalance; by the action of a force directed in the opposite direction, equilibrium is restored” (Todorov 111). From this central plot movement in the text, Todorov argues that two types of narrative episodes emerge, to which two correlated parts of speech (i.e. "grammar") can be linked. The episode that describes the initial equilibrium state can be considered as a “narrative adjective” (Todorov 111). The episode that captures the actual transition between balance and imbalance, illustrates a fundamental action (or a series of actions), and can thus be defined as the “narrative verb” (Todorov 111).Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayIf these two predicates, the adjective-description and the verb transition, constitute the "sentence" of a plot, Herman Melville's Benito Cereno is a continuous narrative with dangling clauses and successive fragments. The short story does not follow a smooth, linear plot pattern that can be traced along a regular trajectory. In fact, there seems to be a confusion in Benito Cereno with Todorov's plot model. If the “description” of the state of equilibrium is the narrative adjective and the transition from equilibrium to imbalance is the narrative verb (action and plot), the “verb” and the action exist in the domain of the description, because all the activity in the short story is filtered through Amasa Delano's impressions. Therefore, the “action” and plot in Benito Cereno are not simply the sum total of the clearly defined “events” of the short story. Rather, the “action” in Benito Cereno occurs at the level of Delano’s perception, his ongoing efforts to make sense of his surroundings. An analysis by Benito Cereno, with particular attention to moments of unreliable narration and mixed impressions, to the unstable formation of unstable characters and to scenes of high magnification and prolonged distension, will not only confirm that the action is produced at the level of perception in the short story. Such an investigation will also demonstrate how Benito Cereno is a narrative that relies on the element of suspicion (in perception) to construct the discourse, propel the story and hold the attention of a reader prey to distrust and to disbelief. that is, the plot) of the first part of Benito Cereno, is focused through the eyes of Amasa Delano, whom the reader quickly learns may not be the source of information and most reliable interpretation. Added to Delano's descriptive gaze is the voice of another third-person narrator, more distant, present in Benito Cereno's text. This voice, subtly but palpably, imbues the story with an air of critical questioning and doubt, raising the possibility that Delano's judgments are wrong. For example, at the very beginning of the short story, the narrator describes Delano as "a person of a singularly distrustful good nature, not likely, except upon extraordinary and repeated promptings, and rarely then, to indulge in personal alarms" ( Melville 162). . As a ship's captain, it seems that a "singularly distrustful good nature" would not be the most appropriate or favorable attitude for Delano to adopt (given the dangers he might face). As a man charged with protecting the lives of his memberscrew, it would seem that Delano should be quicker to distrust or suspect a situation, and that waiting for "extraordinary and repeated promptings" to trigger his "personal alarms" would be a gross error. ineffective defense strategy. Therefore, this depiction of Delano suggests that perhaps what Captain America sees, or how he feels about what he sees, does not reflect or match the true nature of a particular situation. . There are other important instances where a third party's deleted comments undermine Delano's position of authority and narrative reliability. For example, during his first meeting with Don Benito, Delano begins to evaluate the Spaniard's "character." According to the narrator, at the beginning of the text, "the individual troubles of the Spaniard [Benito Cereno] were, for the moment, noted [by Delano] as a remarkable feature of the general affliction of the ship" (170). However, this narrator adds: "Yet Captain Delano was not a little concerned by what he could not help taking for the moment as Don Benito's hostile indifference towards himself" (170). This comment indicates that the narrator somehow knows more than Delano, that he has seen another era beyond the present time of history (and therefore beyond the limits of discourse) , in which the opposite of Delano's judgment was found to be true. . Therefore, the text notices or actively reflects on itself as a story whose details are unreliable, a story in which "reality" is a fluid concept sculpted by the limited, non-omniscient scope of the perceptual lens of Delano. the story continues with an extended description, incidence upon incidence, of precisely what Delano perceives and how he perceives his environment; an environment, that is, that Delano himself often finds strangely curious. For example, a fairly significant portion of the text is devoted to Delano's observation of the style of dress displayed by the passengers of the San Dominick. Regarding Don Benito's attire, Delano comments: The Spaniard wore a loose Chili jacket in dark velvet; little white clothes and stockings, with silver buckles at the knees and instep; a tall sombrero covered with fine grass; a fine sword, mounted in silver, hung from a knot in his belt – the latter being an almost invariable accessory, more utilitarian than decorative, of the attire of a South American gentleman up to that time. Except when his occasional nervous contortions caused disarray, there was a certain precision in his bearing curiously at odds with the unsightly disorder around him; especially in the devastated ghetto, in front of the main mast, entirely occupied by blacks. (176) Delano cannot make sense of the Spanish captain's attire (a feature whose importance to Delano – as a self-defining quality – is emphasized by the length of the description). There is something "bizarre" about these circumstances for Delano, who finds that "the precision of [Don Benito's] attire" is "curiously at odds" with the ship's decor. He does not dwell on the source or effects of this curious divergence; he neither interprets nor explains… because he does not know. Delano simply notes the presence of this incongruity, and it is this act of observation without further explanation that gives the text an unsettling sense of enigma and uncertainty (reflecting Delano's own confusion). The preponderance of impressionist verbs like “seemed” in the text also reinforces this enigma effect. For example, a few lines after describing Don Benito's attire, Delano thinks that "there was something so incongruous in the Spaniard's dress, that it almost suggested the image of an invalid courtier tottering through the streets of London in the time of the plague” (177). Here again, the mystery and strangeness of the situation are (re)emphasized by the term "incongruity", but the discomfort and ambiguity are further suggested by the fact that the figure of comparison (and therefore of explanation) of Delano cannot fully contextualize the elusiveness of his speech. observations. The “image of an invalid courtier staggering through the streets of London” almost captures the sartorial qualities of Don Benito that seem curious to Delano. But the "unknown" here is too great to compare, and no familiar point of reference can provide a sufficient (analogous) explanation. Another example of this "failure to compare" occurs when Delano sees a Spanish sailor putting the hand in his shirt, “as if to hide something” (190). Delano cannot be certain on several points: it could very well be that the sailor was not acting in a secretive and clandestine manner (suggested by the term "as if") or, even if he was trying to be secretive, Delano cannot identify the object he appeared to be hiding. “What was so bright?” he wonders, “Could it have been a piece of jewelry?” But why sailors with jewels?..." (190). Again, Delano simply does not know, and he and the reader cannot be sure whether the initial vague impression is accurate and, if so, what reality lies behind this perception. It is clear, then, that the element of suspicion operates in the text on both an overt and formal level, as evidenced by both the mysterious content and Delano's unreliability as a formal convention (the narrator, the focalizer of history). Delano's hesitations and mixed impressions also affect the (unstable) character construction, demonstrating once again how perception is the driving narrative force and source of "plot" in Benito Cereno. Because the first section of the short story is filtered through Delano's eyes and thoughts, the character illustration, and therefore the image or identity these characters assume for the reader, varies along the spectrum of impressions of Delano. Delano, for example, is sometimes suspicious of Benito Cereno's intentions, developing "vile fears" (190) and a "ghostly fear" of the Spanish captain based on images and events, on "riddles and omens” (191). understand (like the sailor incident and the clothing confusion already mentioned). Additionally, Delano's doubts about Don Benito are stoked when the Spanish captain launches into a series of questions about the size of Delano's crew, inciting "such an involuntary return of suspicion that the singular candor of the 'American couldn't stand it' (189). "Delano's narrated internal monologue continues: 'But don't these questions of the Spaniard...seem asked for almost the same purpose with which the burglar or the murderer, by day, recognizes the walls of a house ? (192). However, after thinking about it further, Delano noticed the openness with which Benito had delivered his investigation, thinking: "But, with bad intentions, to openly solicit such information from the person most threatened, and thus, in fact , put him on his guard; Was it a procedure? It was therefore absurd to suppose that these questions had been motivated by evil intentions. (192) Delano here wonders if a man with bad intentions would conduct his bad business in such a brazen manner, so as to arouse suspicion on his target/victim. Judging this idea “absurd”, he therefore concluded that Don Benito could not haveplanned a bad plan with his questions. Thus, Delano quickly changes his opinion about the Spaniard: The same behavior [of Benito Cereno], which, in this case, had aroused the concern, served to dissipate it. In short, almost no suspicion or concern, even apparently reasonable at the time, which was not now, with the same apparent reason, dismissed. (192) This passage, by emphasizing Delano's hesitation from one extreme of "reason" to another, describes him as a somewhat ambivalent (or foolish) man, capable of changing his mind without much need for reflection or prolonged rumination. Underscoring the speed of Delano's renewal, this description further undermines the stability and reliability of the American captain's judgments. Moreover, with Delano's suspicions (temporarily) suspended, the character of Don Benito goes from evil to good, from villain to victim with equal rapidity, precisely because the image of the Spaniard derives from the source of perception Delano variable. The character is the product of Delano's impressions and, therefore, evidence that "plot" exists at the level of description/perception in BenitoCereno, as a description of the character's actant model will demonstrate. In the "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives" section of Image Music Text, Roland Barthes discusses the legacy of structuralism as being "very concerned" with failing to define "characters in terms of psychological essences." », considering them rather as “participants” [rather than “beings”] in the story (Barthes 106). As early as Aristotle, structural theorists have conceived of character as subordinate to plot action in a discourse, as agents or conductors of that action. It is the active model of character (Barthes 88, attributed to Greimas). Because the characters result from Delano's impressions, they are the "agents" of his observations, and the main action in which they participate is this accumulation of extended perception. The plot to which they are subordinate/by which they are defined is the plot of perception, with individual acts serving as “functional units” (Barthes 90) of the overall action of the short story (i.e. (say Delano's struggle to perceive and make meaning). , its own movement between syntagm and paradigm, between distribution and integration [92]). The functional aspect of the events of the short story, those instances which might at first glance resemble the real "action" of the story, is evidenced by the frustrating stasis that permeates the story, underlined specifically by scenes of enlargement and increased distension. , so much is happening around Delano, and yet so little progress or forward movement seems to follow. The description of Don Benito's attire, already cited, is an example of how the "space" of the narrative is abundantly filled, but the trajectory of time barely advanced (a disproportionate relationship between elapsed time in the speech and the time elapsed in history). . Another interesting scene of increased magnification occurs when Delano encounters a Spanish sailor tying several strands of rope: Captain Delano approached him and stood silently observing the knot; his mind, by a rather pleasant transition, passes from his own entanglements to those of the hemp. As for complexity, he had never seen such a knot on an American ship, nor on any other for that matter. The old man looked like an Egyptian priest making Gordian knots for the temple of Ammon. The knot appeared to be a combination of double crown knot, triple crown knot, well reversed knot, in and out knot, and blocking knot. Finally, perplexed to understand the meaning of such a knot, Captain Delano addressed the knotter: --“What are you tying there, my man?” » “The knot,” was the brief answer, without looking up. “So it seems; but what is it for? “For someone else to undo,” the old man murmured, working his fingers harder than ever, the knot now almost complete. (Melville 202) What is really happening in this scene, at the level of individual events? Looking at the particular verbs to answer this question, it would appear to be a scene in which Delano "passes" towards the sailor, "stands" and "examines him", "sees » the different knots, “asks” the tyer a few questions to which the sailor “answers/mumbles” enigmatically. The scene continues: while Captain Delano was watching him, suddenly the old man threw the knot at him, saying in broken English – the first heard on the ship – something to the effect: “Undo it, cut it, quickly . » This was said quietly, but with such condensation and rapidity that the long, slow words in Spanish which had preceded and followed served almost as a cover for the brief English which separated them. For a moment, knot in hand and knot in head, Captain Delano remained silent; while, without listening to him any longer, the old man was now occupied with other strings. And with that brief line, the scene ends. Why, then, focus so much and intensely on the knotmaker, if Delano simply wants to move on to another part of the ship? The repetition of the word "knot" and the fact that the sailor's later words are pronounced in English, "the first heard in the ship", are clues indicating a certain importance to this passage. However, the fact that Delano turns his attention elsewhere so quickly renders the action of the scene inconsequential. The high magnification seems incongruous given the importance it gives to a scene that does not merit careful treatment, in terms of the individual events depicted. If these actions were so crucial, surely Delano's narrator would linger longer, or other characters would be affected. But this scene, at this level of action, seems episodic, unrelated, unnecessary and therefore frustrating. The key, of course, is to realize that the primary action, to which knot-making, conversation, and sudden throwing are functions, is the establishment of a thread of suspicion via the plot of Delano's perception . There's a lot more going on in this episode than a strange sailor making interesting knots, offering vague answers and then making a random outburst in English. These verbal units constitute the adjective description, which itself illustrates or embodies the broader verbal action of Delano's perception/sense-making process (and thus the narrative adjective and verb models Todorov's narrative are merged into a single grammatical device in Benito Cereno: description is action). The extensive scenes of description and high magnification therefore emphasize how perception is more important, more integral to the action of the story, than the individual "verbal predicates" themselves. Such scenes also highlight the depth and influence of Delano's fallible perception. It could be argued that because these scenes are so long and are the only version of the "events" offered to the reader, they could help convince the reader that, in fact, these scenes reflect the reality of the story. However, due to the levels of suspicion at work in a passage like the one above (the mismatch between the degree of magnification and the apparent level of meaning; the repetition of words; the cryptic responses; Delano's confusion) , the reader doubts that the actions described and the “truth” of, 1968.