The Confidence-Man
The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, first published in New York on April Fool's Day 1857, is the ninth and final novel by American writer Herman Melville. The work was published on the exact day of the novel's setting. Centered on the title character, The Confidence-Man portrays a group of steamboat passengers travelling on the Mississippi River toward New Orleans. The narrative follows a succession of confidence men who, as suggested by the book's title, may be the same man in disguise. The confidence man uses various methods of persuasion to sell patent medicine, encourage speculation in fraudulent business, donate to non-existent charities, and other cons. In the latter part of the narrative, the confidence man discusses friendship and other topics with the other passengers. Interspersed with the dialogues are other texts: essay, short story, ode, and others. These additional texts inspire the reader to consider the difference between fiction and reality.
When the novel was first released, critical reception acknowledged its metaphysical angle, while criticizing its cynical point of view. Many reviewers seem not to have understood that the title hinted that one man was represented in multiple disguises and that the book criticized Christianity. Elizabeth Foster's introduction to the 1954 edition summarized the critical analysis already done and spurred further study of the work. Since then, critics have praised the work for its postmodern sensibilities, like how the confidence man both hides and reveals truth. Literary analysts have described the novel as a satire or allegory, with a possible typological reading of the work. The use of tropes from pantomime suggests that characters are fulfilling stereotyped roles. Melville based some of the characters on real-life people. The inclusion of multiple genres of writing is reminiscent of literary magazines of the day, tapping into journalistic uncertainty about the fiction and non-fiction status of the work. One of Melville's biographers stated that the reason for the many genres in the novel is that Melville lengthened it with previously-rejected works. The novel includes religious themes and shows how an economy that assumes generosity must adapt when characters like the confidence man take advantage of those assumptions. Stories within the novel address racial conflict between Indians and white settlers and illustrate how racist stories are removed from firsthand accounts from Indians.
Historical background
At the time The Confidence-Man was published, the Mississippi River was seen as part of the Western frontier and the fringe of civilization. Drinking and gambling were common on steamboats along the Mississippi, and the frontier was associated with lawlessness and corruption. The 1850s were a time when many United States citizens felt that westward expansion was inevitable, an idea called Manifest Destiny. Individualism and materialism were both popular virtues. Coinciding with the economic growth of the 1850s, economic speculation became one way that many built or lost fortunes. Selling of stock was not well-regulated; it was possible to sell unauthorized shares of stock, or to sell stock in fictitious companies. Making money became a virtue, and the method was often not scrutinized.Also in the 1850s, magazines portrayed P. T. Barnum's promotion of hoaxes to make money as a similar kind of swindling. Early in 1855, there was widespread news coverage of a man who tricked people out of their money in New York by pretending to need an emergency loan. The April account in the Albany Evening Journal, where the confidence man pretends to be an acquaintance of a jewelry store employee, and then draws attention to their shared membership in Freemasonry to gain sympathy for a monetary donation, is very similar to Ringman's con in chapter 4 of the novel. Newspaper accounts emphasized the "new" and "original" methods of the confidence man. The account in the New York Herald recounted how baldly the confidence man asked for his victim's confidence, for example, with the question "Are you really disposed to put any confidence in me?" The characters in Melville's novel similarly ask directly if their interlocutors have confidence in them. The land fraud found in the Black Rapids Coal Company and the herb doctor's miracle cures were both types of fraud common in the mid-19th-century.
Some useful background information is only relevant to certain chapters. Guinea is a free black man who, as a disabled beggar, is reliant on others. His situation as a "happy darky" shows the racist, stereotypical ideas people had about free blacks at the time, including the idea that they would be reliant on others to make a living. The Temperance movements in the 1850s led to legislation that outlawed drinking in several states, and many people believing that alcohol was injurious to one's physical and mental health. Because of this, bootleggers and other sellers often mixed lower-proof alcoholic drinks, like wine, with higher-proof drinks, like whiskey, in order to disguise their true potency. While drinking, the characters of Frank Goodman and Charlie Noble discuss how their wine has been mixed with other drinks. A "Charlie Noble" was also nautical slang for the galley chimney, his name conveying that he is a shadowy character. Observing a period of social mourning like John Ringman does was a sign of being part of the middle-class, and this character likely uses it to elicit sympathy. When the man in grey alludes to creating a World's Charity, this is a reference to the world's fair, or an international exhibition of industry and commerce. The idea is thus a satirical one, as the industry featured at the world's fair often relies on exploitation of the labor of the lower class. The patent medicine the herb doctor sells was especially popular in the 1840s and 1850s, when growing advertising and sales industries made it possible to promote remedies regardless of their effectiveness. Towards the end of the novel, an old man reads from a "traveling Bible" that is in like-new condition. Due to the efforts of the American Bible Society, millions of Bibles were distributed across America in the 1850s, many of which were not read. The young peddler sells the old man a "counterfeit detector," likely a copy of a monthly journal dedicated to reporting on counterfeit banknotes.
Creation
Melville's friend and publisher, Evert Duyckinck published comments on the confidence man in the Literary World, and had the opinion that the gullibility of his victims attested to their Christian values. Duyckinck also reprinted a column from Merchant's Ledger in the Literary World that stated that those who were not fooled by the confidence man were on their way to becoming a "hardened villain", since they are suspicious of everyone's motives. The essay also recognized that confidence men exist not just on the streets, but also in politics and sales. Melville subscribed to the Literary World and likely read the pieces. Melville was also inspired by Don Quixote, which he read shortly before writing The Confidence-Man.Melville had long been interested in blending historical facts with his fiction, but they were usually based in some of his personal experience. Before writing The Confidence-Man, Melville sent his friend Nathanial Hawthorne suggestions on how to adapt a real-life anecdote about a woman who waited for her husband for 17 years as a short story. In a 1982 monograph, Tom Quirk argues that Melville used a similar method to write The Confidence-Man. Melville's biographer, Hershel Parker, wrote that it was common for Melville to take inspiration from newspaper stories, as he did with "Bartleby, the Scrivener" Chapter 44 of the novel contains a narrative digression on how to create an "original" character like Hamlet, Milton's Satan and Don Quixote, including a discussion on Melville's own attempt to create an "original" character in the cosmopolitan Frank Goodman.
Melville was not financially successful as a writer and by 1853, he had incurred many debts, some of which he was unable to repay. He worked on the manuscript for The Confidence-Man between 1855 and 1856. He had problems with severe sciatica pain during 1855. He wanted to publish The Confidence-Man serially in Putnam
The Confidence-Man was published on April Fool's Day in 1857. Melville's father's family came from Scotland, where on April Fool's day, there is a tradition of sending gullible people on long journeys for no reason. For example, the perpetrator of the prank might ask a man to deliver a letter to a neighbor, which tells the neighbor to send the man to another person with a similar letter, until he realizes that he is being fooled. The way that the confidence man pulls successive pranks on the steamship passengers is reminiscent of this practice.
Summary
The novel's title refers to its central character, an ambiguous figure. He sneaks aboard a Mississippi steamboat on April Fool's Day. This stranger attempts to test the confidence of the passengers. Their varied reactions constitute the bulk of the text, which is formatted in a series of vignettes. While the vignettes do not build on each other, they do allude to each other. Each person is forced to confront the placement of his trust. The entire novel takes place over the course of one day.In the first chapter, a deaf-mute man writes quotes from the Bible about charity on a sign, to the skepticism of the crowd. A black man named Guinea begs for money, and a man accuses him of being neither black nor disabled. A man with a weed in his hat named John Ringman tells Mr. Roberts that they have met before; Roberts insists that they have not. Ringman recounts his troubled life to Roberts, and notes that they are both masons. Roberts gives Ringman some money in sympathy. A man in a grey coat convinces a young clergyman to give him money to give to Guinea. Encourged, the man in the grey coat asks him for a donation to a charity for widows and orphans, which he receives. He asks more passengers to donate to the charity, with some success.
After being warned that he could be swindled by a man in a cap, a young college student buys stock in Black Rapid Coal Company from John Ringman. The man in the cap convinces Roberts to buy stock in the Black Rapid Coal Company. An unnamed narrator relates how Ringman lost a wife and child and is now raising money to get custody of his daughter, which makes Roberts and the man in a cap sympathetic to him. The narrator states that authors should write their characters consistently, even though in reality, people are inconsistent. As payment for bringing him water, the man in the cap asks the miser for confidence to invest his money, which claims that he can triple. The miser gives him one hundred dollars, and the man in the cap leaves.
A sick man strikes up a conversation with an herb doctor, who sells him medicine. The herb doctor sells liniment to Thomas Fry, an injured soldier and to the miser, after reporting to the miser that he just saw the man in the cap debark. The Missourian, Pitch, warns the miser that the medicine won't work, and they debate the merits of "natural" illness, remedies, and disasters. The herb doctor overhears and fails to convince Pitch of his sincerity. Pitch strikes up a conversation with the round-backed man, who claims that he works at an employment agency and convinces him to hire a boy. Afterwards, he talks to the cosmopolitan Frank Goodman and rebuffs his offer of friendship.
Charlie Noble, a stranger from the West, tells Goodman that Pitch reminds him of Moredock, a famed Indian-hater. Noble tells Goodman how John Moredock, after Indians kill his mother, kills many Indians in revenge. Despite being a murderer, Moredock was a devoted husband and father and otherwise likeable. Goodman finds this hard to believe, and asks Noble to be charitable when judging Pitch. Goodman and Noble become friends, and they drink together. After Goodman asks Noble for a loan, Noble almost leaves, but Goodman performs a rite and commands him to return. Noble concludes that Goodman's request for money was an "absurd story." The unnamed narrator tells the reader his theories about the importance of reality in fiction.
Mark Winsom, a mystic, warns Goodman that Noble is not trustworthy. Winsom's disciple, Egbert, meets Goodman. Egbert tells Goodman that lending him money would ruin their friendship; Goodman wants the loan to test their friendship. Goodman goes to the barbershop, where "no trust" is displayed prominently. Goodman tells the barber that he should trust, and tells the barber he will cover any debts the barber incurs for trusting. The barber wants to have a written contract, so Goodman walks away without paying for his shave. An old man has Goodman read from the Bible to him, and Goodman reads quotes about how we should be distrustful. The old man says these words are from the apocrypha, so they aren't true. The old man buys a lock for his door to guard against thieves while Goodman leads him to his room.