Bartleby and Benito Cereno

Both these long short stories are from Melville's 1856 collection, PIAZZA TALES. BARTLEBY, Melville's allegorical tragicomedy, is the tale of an obscure clerk in a law office on Wall Street. Bartleby's implacable passivity, expressed in his constant iteration of the phrase "I prefer not to," has a strangely disturbing effect he has on those with whom he comes in contact. BARTLEBY is one of Melville's most appealing and enduring works. BENITO CERENO is about the attempts made by Amaso Delano of Massachusetts, the captain of ship, to aid another ship in distress--a slaveship under the command of the mortally ill Benito Cereno. Gradually, Captain Delano realizes that Cereno is actually a prisoner: the slaves have mutinied and are now in control. Delano captures the ship and executes the ringleaders, and Cereno enters a monastery, where he dies. Captain Delano is another in Melville's series of heroes whose innocence prevent them from fully comprehending the evil to which they are exposed.