num_pages: 275
description: The structure of "The Confidence-Man" is a symbolic counterpart of Melville's grim but basically compassionate agnosticism. With a cunning disregard for conventional form because it implied conventional values and attitudes, he designed a novel in which the unimportance of plot, movement, suspense and climax, and the lack of a sympathetic protagonist are positive qualities. Plot is replaced by a series of confrontations, at times so patterned that they suggest the performance of a ritual. But instead of moving toward a resolution or a climax, these recurring performances trail off into what at first seems an aimless direction. Upon closer scrutiny they appear to circle back upon themselves. The outcome of the confrontation is usually clear from the beginning, and suspense depends not on revelation but on process. Talk is substituted for action, and wit for emotion. Like a carousel, the novel whirls in it's circle while remaining in the same place, the tension between stasis and motion underscored through the flow of characters who slip in and out of their various guises, and the setting, a river steamer moving downstream on a voyage of more than a thousand miles. In this book, The Confidence Man appears in eight successive incarnations. Melville's talents lay in the direction of extension, elaboration, involution, diversity, and digression. He used form effectively but he did not let it get in his way. The theme of The Confidence Man is so mordant that unless there were rigid controls, the novel could move beyond tragedy to rage and despair. Melville's solution was to adopt the masque of comedy. Puns, tricks, choplogic, high wit, and low humor prevail. But the best joke of all is that Melville, striking back through the structure and style of his novel, manages to beat The Confidence Man at his own game. (Hennig Cohen)
language: English
title: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
titlecomplete: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
genres: Fiction, American, The United States Of America, Crime, Literature, Classics, Novels, 19th Century, Literary Fiction, United States
ratings_count: 3147
publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston