Graduation Year
2021
Date of Submission
5-2021
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Literature
Reader 1
Nicholas Warner
Terms of Use & License Information
Abstract
This thesis examines race in the works of Herman Melville. To do so, it analyzes the racial attitudes of white characters in Moby Dick and “Benito Cereno” and their relationships with people of color. The first chapter focuses on Ishmael and Captain Ahab in Moby Dick and explains why those two are motivated to shed traditional racist attitudes. The second chapter concerns the other white characters in Moby Dick who hold to racist beliefs in order to maintain social power. The third chapter uses “Benito Cereno” to show how racist attitudes held by Captain Delano and Benito Cereno blind them from reality and put their lives and social power at risk. In total, this thesis explores how the use and rejection of racism by Melville’s white characters comprise a tension between exclusion and inclusion that typifies America’s racial past and present.
Recommended Citation
Koltun, Erik, "“That Ghastly Whiteness”: Race and Power in Herman Melville" (2021). CMC Senior Theses. 2748.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2748
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
