Benito Cereno

It's difficult to tell whether Melville is pro or anti-slavery from Benito Cereno. At first it seemed as if he was anti-slavery because the slaves on the ship were allowed to roam free under Cereno's command and they were portrayed as smart and strong. One scene in particular, when Cereno faints and Babo catches him, seems to make a stark contrast between the strong African and the frail, weak white man. When I read the scene I thought that Melville was romanticizing the slaves and making them seem strong in contrast to Cereno to show that they weren't at all inferior. The scene where the black child hits the white child on the head with a knife, however, seems to steer Melville's opinion the other way. After reading the end and realizing that the slaves had taken over the ship, Melville's views still baffle me. On the one hand, he does portray the African slaves as strong and competent, which is a lot more than can be said for other authors of the time period. The Spanish sailors are constantly shown to be the weaker of the two races on board with the exception of Delano. Delano is more of a neutral character so that the issue of slavery can be viewed more objectively. It can also be read as pro-slavery, however, depicting slaves as dangerous people not to be trusted. I think overall it isn't mean to be for or against slavery, but to just show that slaves are people who are intelligent and stronger than the white people of the day gave them credit for and only rebelled because they were treated unfairly.

One thing about Mercy Otis Warren's writing that stuck out to me is how she uses rhyme to convey the meaning of the satire. The fact that the play is written in verse and uses rhyme every now and then is reminiscent of Shakespeare's approach to satire, which she studied as a child. In the beginning of the play there isn't much rhyme - just a few lines thrown in here and there. The first bit is in the first scene of Act I where Simple says "And ecstasies entranced my slender brain/ But yet, e'ere this I hoped more solid gains." The next occurence is in the same scene when Halzerod, responding to Crusty Crowbar's doubt about his stance in the war, says "Gave me a competence of shining ore, /Or gratified my itching palm for more; / Till I dismissed the bold intruding guest, / And banished conscience from my wounded breast." In these beginning bits of rhyming lines, Warren is using rhyme as a method of emphasizing the characters' personalities and portraying them as greedy and heartless. Another instance of this is at the end of Act I where Halzerod, responding to a horrific scene of brutality against the Americans that Hateall has just invented, expresses in rhyme how he would have no pity for such victims because they would be getting what they asked for. Once again, rhyme is used to reiterate how cruel the Tories are.
The emphasis on rhyme shifts a bit towards the end of the play. In the middle of Act II, scene 3 on page 18, Secretary Dupe says "Not Senex rant, nor yet dull Grotius' pen... Can either coax them, or the least control/ The valorous purpose of their Roman souls." Here he compares the colonists to Romans, suggesting that he must have some sort of respect for them. The last three speeches of the play are all in rhyme. A little later in scene 2 Secretary Dupe expresses in rhyme how he thinks that the British cannot win the war and then Meagre, also rhyming, chastizes him for it. The very last speaker is the woman, who in her rhyming verse says that the colonists will indeed win the war and that they will be heroes. There is a definite shift in the tone of the rhyming segments in the second half of the play as Warren uses it to praise the colonists and their cause. She uses rhyme to outline her main points - the cruelty of the Tories and the valor of the Colonists - because rhyme makes the lines more memorable.

Benjamin Franklin

The main thing that most stuck out to me about the third part of Benjamin Franklin's biography was how he takes it upon himself to teach what he knows to others and how seriously he seems to take that responsibility. When he talks about his printing business, he usually ends with advising young printers to do the same. For example, when he opposes printing "private altercations" in his paper, he says "These things I mention as caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute their papers and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests." He constantly uses his life experiences as lessons to other people, suggesting that his aim in writing this biography is not just to brag about his accomplishments or tell about his life, but to use what he has learned to teach others to improve their lives.
While such an authoritative position on virtue and wise business and social practices as Franklin takes could be easily construed as arrogant, this does not seem to be the case with Franklin. This is mainly due to the fact that he does not simply boast about his own accomplishments, but also the accomplishments of others. In talking about the fire company and how he and his committee got it up and running, he constantly refers to his achievements with "we" instead of "I," sharing the credit with his peers. He also talks about how the widow of the man in South Carolina to whom he lent printing materials takes it upon herself to bring the business out of debt and buy it from Franklin in a short time period. He then boasts of how good she was with finances and proposes that all women in America be taught to manage money. He takes the attention off of himself and praises someone else numerous times like this one, discussing also travelling preachers that he favored. This praise of other people shows that his intentions in writing this autobiography can't be arrogant and selfish because he does not brag about anything. He admits his short comings, as seen in the second part when he talks about how he has trouble conquering the virtue of order, and advises people on what he has found successful in life so that they might learn from both his mistakes and his successes.