All the world's a stage, and all the men and women are merely actors; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his day plays many parts. —William Shakespeare, As You Like It (1623) In Benito Cereno, Melville establishes contrasting forms of innocence. The innocence of the mind has no knowledge of wrongdoing and, as a result, can commit and justify heinous crimes. Innocence of action understands that to accomplish a greater good, a lesser evil must sometimes be committed. For example, Captain Delano is too naive to see the slave revolt because he blames blacks for good. Babo is innocent because he realizes that his revolt is necessary to prevent the whites from further wronging his fellow slaves. Yet neither party is truly innocent; Captain Delano has no qualms about slave trading, and Babo pretends to be a slave to exploit Delano's misconceptions and manipulate his actions. Delano and Babo serve as representatives of whites and blacks. Delano sees blacks as absolutely good, animals incapable of doing evil, and whites as perpetrators of evil. However, as demonstrated by Melville's continued use of darkness and shadows to imply evil, white people see all people of color as immoral. Babo realizes that white slave laws make it impossible for anyone but whites to escape slavery and still be seen as “moral.” Babo also possessed a black double consciousness, he realizes the contradiction in the perception of white people and is able to use it to his advantage. In Delano and Babo, Melville presents dual, but not identical, shades of innocence – innocence of knowledge and innocence of action – and argues that innocence is not binary. Innocence of thought or action does not mean goodness because... middle of paper...but justified, the actor may not believe the speech, but strive to make the speech as convincing as possible. The method does not affect whether the actor takes action. He can't help but act. Comedy is not reality, although reality is comedy; since moral perfection is impossible, the actor will never believe exactly what he says or act exactly as he should, even though he has instructions to create reality in the script. The point is to try. Works Cited Melville, Herman. “Benito Cereno” The Tales of the Square. 2005. Project Gutenberg. Network. February 17, 2011. Merriam-Webster Inc. "Espresso." Merriam Webster. August 13, 2010. Web. February 17, 2011..Richards, Jason. “Melville's (inter)national Burlesque: Whiteface, Blackface, and “Benito Cereno.” ATQ21.2 (2007): 73-94. Academic research completed. EBSCO. Web. 10 February. 2011. (79-80).