The Confidence Man

The Confidence Man By: Herman Melville
This text is a moderate text that broke certain conventions when it was written. It is a very interesting moral novel with psychological aspects. It ends up being an argument that goes around in circles. Melville satires human optimism. In The Norton book in Emerson's bio it says that "At one extreme, Melville reacted so hostilely to the optimistic side of Emerson's thought that he satirized him in The Confidence Man as a great American philosophical con man." Melville saw the world as a bad dark place. He did not want to see the good side of things. There was always something that could go wrong. Melville says "To do, is to act; so all doers are actors." He is saying every person is essentially playing a different role in life. No one is immune to being behind a sort of mask during their life. He is using philosophy as a negative thing in society but he ends up conveying his message in a very philosophical way. The way Melville wrote this book it ends up being self reflexive it ends up exploring its own making. The Confidence Man is a very shocking book for this time period Melville was writing in. A confusing part of this book is distinguishing who is speaking and which character the "confidence man" is at one time. There are many symbols that point to the "confidence man" being a devil figure. During one or two characters he is carrying a black book in which he records names. This to me is a parallel to people selling their souls to the devil in a way. The "confidence man" quotes a lot of sculptures which is ironic due to him being a Satan like character. He ends up finding each of his victims weakness if not the first time he eventually does. There are many times the "confidence man" refers to confidence one example is "did you never observe how little, very little, confidence, there is? I mean between man and man- more particular between stranger and stranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence!...by way of experiment, simply have confidence in me?" The "confidence man" ends up conning his victims into feeling safe with him. He ends up gaining their confidence when in reality he is lying through his teeth. An interesting name he gives one of his past characters is "Mr. Truman" = true man which he certainly is not. One character that questions the "confidence man" is Pitch. He does not trust the CM he refuses to have trust or sympathy for another human. Pitch ends up being tricked by "the devil". This trickery leads to the "confidence man" being seen as a "trickster". If one never trust another human they end up not having human connections. This leads to Alfred Lord Tennyson's quote "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." I would rather have human connections and take the risk of trusting someone rather than not having a human bond.