During the tense shaving sequence, Babo uses a Spanish flag as a makeshift barber's apron while shaving Don Benito Cereno under the watchful eye of Captain Amasa Delano. The scene drips with psychological suspense and multi-layered irony; Delano interprets the trembling nervousness and minor razor nick as signs of Spanish tyranny or emotional instability, completely blind to the fact that the flag symbolizes the subversion of colonial power and that Babo holds a literal blade to Cereno's throat.