I'm finding the middle of the book to be pretty repetitive. There are multiple instances where either the narrator or Amasa Delano repeats, in one form or another, several images that I feel have been exhausted already. Most of these seem to occur when Delano gets to thinking. The most repetitive excerpt seems is the recurrent instance of Delano second-guessing his intuitions as to the true motive of Don Cereno. I haven't counted, but it's happened enough now so that I, the reader, get it, and am pretty tired of having it reiterated. I'm actually breaking the monotony with this post!
That said, we've talked a few times in class about the coded message within this text and others. Because this repetition tends to lull me into a complacent approach, I wonder if this might be some mechanism intended to further disguise an intended message. I'm trying to think of things from my perspective, along with the perspective of one who might have read the story when it was first published. And while it seems that there is a lot going on that does matter, I feel like some of the instances of this subconscious battle that Delano is having with himself take away from the pace of the story more than they add to the suspense.
Is Melville tricking me?
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