Striking Through the Pasteboard Mask:

A Stylistics Analysis of the Works of Herman Melville

By

Kristal Eilein Metzger-Andersen, B.A.

A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English

California State University, Bakersfield

In Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of

Masters of English

Spring 2012

Copyright

By

Kristal Eilein Metzger-Andersen

2012

Striking Through the Pasteboard Mask:

A Stylistics Analysis of the Works of Herman Melville

By Kristal Eilein Metzger-Andersen, B.A.

This thesis has been accepted on behalf of the Department of English by their supervisory committee:

Dr. Steven Frye

This thesis is dedicated to Dr’s Charles MacQuarrie and Steven Frye. Without your constant reassurance and encouragement this thesis would never have seen the light of day. A special thanks to my husband, Chris Andersen, who gave me the confidence to continue when I wanted to quit. Thank you so much for being the light in the storm.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter One: The Travel Narratives – Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, During a Four Months’ Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas 7

Chapter Two: The Philosophical Narratives – “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” 17

Chapter Three: The Psychological Narrative – Moby Dick; or, The Whale 27

Chapter Four: The Satirical Narrative – The Confidence Man: His Masquerade 37

Conclusion 49

Glossary of Literary Terms 51

Bibliography 53

Metzger-Andersen 1

Introduction

Herman Melville is arguably the most influential American writer of the

nineteenth-century, yet he was not taken seriously by the critics of his time. Since the

early twentieth-century, however, Melville’s oeuvre has been considered an important part of the Western canon and modern critics have been writing about his works at length.

Unlike his contemporary critics, those from the early twentieth-century forward

appreciate Melville’s works and recognize their tremendous literary value. Even with the

extensive studies on his collected works, the one thing that has failed to receive

recognition from the critics is the pervasive role that stylistics played in Melville’s

writing. To date, there have been a few articles and books that discuss the stylistics of

specific works, and although John Bernstein endeavored to link specific themes to all

Melville’s catalog in Pacifism and Rebellion in the Writings of Herman Melville, there has never been a cross-sectional analysis of his works grounded solely in stylistics. The development in Melville’s opus is interesting in that most authors tend to become typecast into one particular style, while Melville wrote in such a way as to avoid these

self-imposed restrictions. As such, this thesis will reticulate Melville’s stylistic variations

from Typee to The Confidence Man and demonstrate the various stylistic techniques he

used.

Melville’s works naturally break down into four stylistic categories: (1) Travel,

(2) Philosophical, (3) Psychological, and (4) Satirical. The main works within the first

category, Travel, are Typee, Omoo, and Redburn. These works are all semi- autobiographical travel narratives based on adventures set on the high seas. While not

Metzger-Andersen 2

devoid of other elements, the focus of these tales is very much about the journeys of the characters. There is little time spent on character development; the narrative focuses instead on their actions and descriptions of their travels. The stylistics of these novels is very straightforward and characterized by simple descriptive syntactic devices.

Unlike the works within the Adventure category, those within the Philosophical involve more discussion among and about the characters. Mardi, “Bartleby the Scrivener,”

and White-Jacket epitomize Melville’s Philosophical genre. In these works, Melville

begins experimenting with stylistic devices that convey a more express purpose than

simple narration. These works, with their complexity and stylistic variances, are

precursors to the psychological masterpiece, Moby-Dick.

The final two categories are Psychological and Satirical. While there are many works that can be described as psychological, especially many of Melville’s short works, this thesis will focus on Moby-Dick. The category of Melville’s satirical works, on the

other hand, is a set that contains only one. Although elements of satire are found in numerous works of Melville, there is only one work that he specifically characterized as a satire, The Confidence Man. Moby-Dick is emulative of a deep psychological questioning of the nature of God, among other things, while The Confidence Man attempts to hold a mirror up to the hypocrisies of the world Melville lives in. Stylistically, these works showcase Melville’s growing complexity from the simple to multifarious narration.

The purpose and intent of this thesis, then, is to discuss the stylistic variances throughout Melville’s works. These works have stylistic devices that are common among all of his works, such as hypotaxis, parataxis, attribution, and erotesis. These staple

Metzger-Andersen 3 devices allow Melville to write complex subordinate clauses that invoke various concepts or emphasize particular ideas. Although important to Melville’s stylistic repertoire it is the different stylistic choices he makes that is most intriguing. There are manifold explanations for the changes to his stylistics, but the primary concern here is not in the why, but rather in the how.

These skills, often overlooked by critics, are a previously un-rubricated notion with regard to Melville and his works. Earlier critics of his works were preoccupied with different themes and concerns, but serious consideration of his works did not begin until the early 1920’s. It was at this time that the works of Melville experienced what is fondly called “The Melville Revival.” (Delbanco) Critics began to reappraise the literary merits of Moby-Dick and Melville’s granddaughter released his previously unpublished Billy

Budd posthumously. The passion for Moby-Dick, coupled with the release of Billy Budd, sparked the critics of the early twentieth-century to reconsider the entire cannon of

Melville’s works. Many of the critics focused on the intense religious and philosophical nature of Melville’s works. E.M. Forster noted that the Billy Budd “‘reach[ed] straight back into the universal, to a blackness and sadness so transcending our own that they are undistinguishable from glory’” and that it’s “ethereal combination of sorrow and serenity” was on par with the tone of Moby-Dick (Delbanco 290). The notions of the nature of evil and the existence of God were also major concerns that eventually became synonymous with Moby-Dick criticism during that time.

Aside from the philosophical and religious overtones explored by the critics of the early twentieth-century, Moby-Dick and many of Melville’s short works were being re- categorized as a proto-modernist work by some critics. Some of the stylistics techniques

Metzger-Andersen 4

that Melville used, such as kaleidoscoping and blending of genre and tone, became more apparent to the critics of the early twentieth-century and they sought out more works that reflected the Modernist movement. Since Modernism was rebelling against the principals of the Realist movement and sought to rebel against the notion of the “all-knowing,

loving, compassionate God” of the nineteenth-century, many of Melville’s works,

especially Moby-Dick, were celebrated as Modernist (Pericles 38-39).

The critics of the latter part of twentieth-century were concerned with gender and sexuality issues associated with both Melville’s works and his personal life. Much speculation has been made about the nature of the relationship between Nathaniel

Hawthorne and Melville, but considering Melville was notorious for destroying correspondence, there is little left of their exchanges to prove with certainty that this is true. What is left that bears any significance to the subject is Melville’s body of work, which he characteristically wrote with “sociohistorigraphical meaning” (Creech 10). As such, many critics have noted the lack of a feminine presence in the majority of his works.

This is fuel for the fire that Melville may have had a propensity towards male companionship. Even though women do occasionally make appearances in Melville’s works, they are almost always the object of sexual desire as in Pierre and Mardi, which works in opposition with the theory of homosexuality (Creech 70).

Yet, in Moby-Dick, with themes such as male bonding and homoerotism, the issue of sexuality becomes a rebarbative subject of discussion. Other critics, however, see

Melville’s narratives as indicative of his issues with intimacy or even impotency.

Ishmael and Ahab are alike in that it is the comfort of the sea they turn to in times of

strife. They turn away from human companionship, even though it appears they form

Metzger-Andersen 5

attachments to Queequeg and Starbuck respectively, but they are superficial connections.

Similarly, critics argue that in Melville’s short story, The Paradise of Bachelors and

Tartarus of Maids, “the bachelors in their paradise . . . are blind to what is real and

painful in the world . . . [and the] tartarus of maids is a frightening, lonely, hellish

place . . . and nothing can be created” from either world as fertility is removed in both worlds (Rosenberg 71).

As of late, the fixation of literary critics in regards to Melville’s works is post- colonialism and, more importantly, Melville’s own inquiry into colonialism. The works most commonly associated with this theme are the South Sea tales. Often times referred to as his “sociological travel narratives,” the South Sea tales are read with other texts describing far away lands as “a continuous narrative that needs to be read through the discourse of empire-making.” (Schueller 8-9). Critics view these tales as a glimpse into

Western Imperialism and colonization.

Some critics tend to praise Melville’s South Sea tales, especially Typee, for exposing the world of the 1840’s to “the hypocrisies of the Christian missions and the arrogance of the colonizing impulse” (Martin 69). Typee was the first of Melville’s novels that highlighted these concerns, but his later South Sea tales touched on them so that many of the critics of today see them as “social criticism directed against the western culture, economic, and military colonization of the Marquesan peoples” (Breitwiser 396); however it is not only the South Sea tales where colonialism can be found. Many critics also, not surprisingly, read Melville’s Billy Budd as a colonial critique. According to the critics, this tale is representative of “the consequences of impressment . . . [and] the forcible absorption into and imperial or old world order” as well as proof of “American

Metzger-Andersen 6 postcolonial anxiety” (Buell 215-216). Since Melville’s style included dense descriptions of people, places, and things, modern critics have plotted a timeline of sorts of the path of

Western Imperialism throughout the whole of his body of works.

This review of criticism is by no means exhaustive of Herman Melville’s body of work. A subject so vast, in fact, that a recent search in just one of the electronic research databases of California State University, Bakersfield’s Walter Stiern Library results in

10,404 hits! There is simply not enough time to read and summarize the entire catalog of criticism of Melville’s works. This review, therefore, focuses only on the major schools of scholarship. As evidenced above, those concerns have little stylistics relevance, yet they support the notion that Melville’s works were more than mere entertainment.

Currently there are extensive criticisms on the works of Melville, but very few articles are based solely on stylistic devices. Of those few that do exist, the focus is limited to one work. To date, there has not been any comprehensive stylistics analysis of his entire body of works. That is to say, that while critics have analyzed stylistic aspects of works of Melville, there has not been one analysis that focuses on the stylistics of his entire collected works as this thesis intends to do.

Metzger-Andersen 7

Chapter One: The Travel Narrative – Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, During a Four Months’ Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas

Herman Melville’s Travel Narratives, also fondly referred to as the South Sea

Tales, are a major source of criticism among those exploring colonialism and, more specifically, Western Imperialism. Loosely based on Melville’s own experience in these areas, the Travel Narratives give rich descriptions of the exotic locale and incorporate the adventures of a life on the high seas. While many of Melville’s works, both novels and short stories alike, include the aforementioned elements; those works that exemplify these best are Typee, Omoo, and Redburn. Each of these stories is a blending of topographia and topothesia, among other stylistic components, as Melville blurs the lines between his own experiences with those of his characters, the quintessential travelogue.

In 1841 Melville boarded the whaling ship Acushnet for what was meant to be a three-year whaling expedition, but after only eighteen months, he jumped ship while docked in Nukuheva Harbor in the Marquesan Islands. He was among the natives of the

Typee (Taipi) Valley for little over three weeks in what he fondly referred to as

“indulgent captivity” (Delbanco 41). The time that Melville spent among his friendly captors, is well reported in his first novel Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, During a

Four Months Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas; however, this novel should not be confused with an autobiographical account. The very nature of the travelogue, blending of “life and travel writing, natural and social science, religious and political critique” begs the reader to come to Typee “divested of any preconceived expectations of form”

(Bryant x) and stylistically, Typee has more rhetorical structure than literary structure.

Metzger-Andersen 8

After deserting both the Acushnet and his captors, Melville boarded an Australian whaling ship, Lucy Ann, headed for Tahiti. Aboard this “small, slatternly looking craft,”

Melville participated in a mutiny against the ships captain (Delbanco 44). This resulted in the short imprisonment of Melville and his fellow mutineers once they reached the shores of Tahiti. He based his second novel, Omoo: A Narrative of Adventure in the

South Seas, on these experiences. Like Typee, the structure of Omoo is similarly more rhetoric based than literary.

The third novel in the travel narrative, yet Melville’s fourth published work, was written three years after Typee and two after Omoo and is based on an experience that

Melville had traveling to Liverpool from New York and back in 1839, before his stints on the Acushnet and Lucy Ann. Aptly titled Redburn, His First Voyage: Being the Sailor-

Boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service,

this novel falls back into the simple travel narrative structure of Typee and Omoo.

Therein he describes his first voyage at sea as a “leap from boyhood to manhood” and we can see that, although written ten years after the journey had taken place, Melville remembers it as if he has just stepped off the ship (Delbanco 28). Again he blends truth and fiction in true travelogue fashion to bring the story to life.

To say then that Melville wrote without purpose would be incorrect. While the exact intent of what may have motivated Melville is a subject of debate among scholars, the stylistic evidence left in the wake of his catalog of works shows that he did have some objective in mind while writing. Meaning, for all intents and purposes, in this thesis is secondary to establishing the stylistics of Melville’s first category of narratives. While all three of these works epitomize the stylistic characteristics of the travel narratives, the

Metzger-Andersen 9

main focus of this chapter will be on Typee. Of the three works, Typee has the best

display of the characteristics of the travel narrative and is essentially the model, at least

stylistically, of his later works.

As the first and most well received narrative of all Melville’s works, Typee sets the stage for Melville’s subsequent novels. The stylistics within the travel narratives is simpler than those of his other categories of narratives, yet they are by no means simplistic. They are meant to allow accessibility to the reader, but in a sophisticated way.

The most prevalent stylistic devices Melville uses in his travel narratives are diaresis summation, hypotaxis, blending topographia and topothesia, with mild usage of anaphora and asyndeton, and a rich usage of non-verbal stylistics. A detailed look at the work, specifically the first chapter, will illustrate how these devices work together to create

Melville’s travel narratives.

Essentially “the travel writer acted as . . . the ‘seeing-man’ . . . classifying, assigning value, interpreting, exoticizing, and normalizing those cultures with which he comes into contact” (Ivison 116). As such, a particularly useful stylistic technique

Melville employs is the use of diaresis summation at the end of his titles and the beginning of each chapter. When the reader picks up Typee, they know immediately what type of read they can expect simply because the subtitle is A Peep at Polynesian

Life, During a Four Months’ Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas, usually shortened to simply A Peep at Polynesian Life for newer editions. The reader need not speculate the nature of the work, nor should there be any doubt about what kind of adventures are described within the chapters. For example, the first chapter is not simply titled,

“Chapter One,” but rather, “Chapter I: The Sea  Longings for Shore  A Land-sick Ship 

Metzger-Andersen 10

Destination of the Voyagers  The Marquesas  Adventure of a Missionary’s Wife Among the Savages  Characteristic Anecdote of the Queen of Nukuheva” (Melville 1).

With this simple stylistic technique, Melville is effectively classifying and assigning value to the important parts of his work. Although he would later develop an amalgamated hypotactic/paratactic narrative style to blend with the diaresis stylistic technique, for the travel narrative Melville uses a straightforward hypotactic style. Since the main purpose of travel writing was to play “a crucial role in representing ‘the world’ to those at ‘home’” (Ivison 116), the hypotactic style makes more sense. Melville does not leave the readers to discern meaning from the works on their own. Instead, this style takes the guesswork out of reading and allows them to see the world as it really is.

The “world,” in this instance, is the island and peoples of the Marquesas Island.

Written five years after Melville’s fateful trek through the Taipai Valley of Nukuheva,

Typee is as much fact as it is fiction. “From the beginning of the text . . . Melville is putting into question the validity of guidebooks . . . borrow[ing] details from the many travel narratives that he had read” (Ivison 119) and marrying them with his own experience on the island. Typee, then, “is as much a travel narrative—meant to be informative—as a novel—meant to be entertaining” (Berthold 559). The rich descriptions in the novel must be taken with a grain of salt, as they are not the fresh memories of man just returned to pen and paper from the immediacy of the island, but rather a seasoned sailor gone from his ink for five years.

Melville describes The Dolly:

how deplorably she appears! The paint on her sides, burnt up by the scorching sun, is puffed out and cracked. See the weeds she trails along with her, and what an unsightly bunch of those horrid barnacles has formed about her stern-piece; and

Metzger-Andersen 11

every time she rises on a sea, she shows her copper torn away, or hanging in jagged strips (3) and the Marquesan island as being full of “blooming valleys, deep glens, waterfalls, and waving groves, hidden here and there by projecting and rocky headlines” (17). One must wonder how much of these descriptions are topographia (actual) and how much topothesia (fiction). We know that Melville was actually on the Island of Nukuheva, but of the five years he was at sea “he lingered [on Nukuheva] for a few weeks before breaking away” (Delbanco 43). As such, it is unlikely that exact memories survived and fabrications exist to fill in the gaps where Melville’s recollections lapse.

The details, both fact and fiction, are then presented to the reader in a multitude of stylistically complex ways. The first of such stylistic devices being the selective use of anaphora and asyndeton to emphasize certain aspects of the narrative. At the beginning of the first chapter, the narrator, Tommo, declares “Six months at sea!” (Melville 1) and then repeats the line four more times throughout the chapter in lines two, eight, and thirty-four. Melville wants to stress to the reader that this ship has not seen land for six months. He then describes the lack of food aboard The Dolly, but rather than simply stating “We have no food,” he says:

Weeks and weeks ago fresh provisions were all exhausted. There is not a sweet potato left; not a single yam. Those glorious bunches of bananas, which once decorated our stern and quarter-deck, have, alas, disappeared! and the delicious oranges which hung suspended from our tops and stays- -they, too are gone! Yes, they are all departed, and there is nothing left us but salt-horse and sea-biscuit . . . Is there nothing fresh around us? Is there no green thing to be seen? (Melville 1-2)

Because the famine-like conditions are emphasized ad nauseam, the reader begins to feel the desperation of the shipmates. A desperation so described in lines fourteen through twenty-three as the men of the ship secretly “long for the decapitation of the luckless

Metzger-Andersen 12

Pedro,” the ships rooster, and lone source of fresh meat for the captain’s table; thereby the only thing standing between the men and shore. (Melville 3)

Making these reiterative statements all the more impactful is the deliberate exclusion or minimal use of conjunctions. This asyndetic technique allows Melville to

“convert such ritual ‘and’s and ‘then’s into pauses or rests . . . [to] punctuate his narrative

and build suspense” (Lanham 34). Many writers use or discard conjunctions to control

the speed of their narrative flow and it is apparent that Melville is attempting to keep the

flow of Typee at a fairly even pace, but in some instances, to emphasize specific elements.

Line ten in Chapter Four describes life aboard the Dolly, “The usage on board of her was tyrannical; the sick had been inhumanly neglected; the provisions had been doles out in scanty allowance, and her cruizes were unreasonably protracted” (Melville 35). By replacing the conjunctions “and” and “or” with semicolons, Melville is reducing not only redundancy but also highlighting specific aspects, in this instance, the deplorable conditions the sailors face at sea. By emphasizing such conditions, the reader is more likely to sympathize with the sailors who want to abandon their ship.

Melville uses this technique again in line forty of the first paragraph he describes the details speculated about the inhabitants of the Marquesas islands: “Nakid houris – cannibal banquets – groves of cocoa-nut – coral reefs – tattooed chiefs – and bamboo temples, sunny valleys planted with bread-fruit trees – carved canoes dancing on the flashing blue waters – savage woodlands guarded by horrible idols – heathenish rites and human sacrifices” (Melville 5-6). This time, instead of semi-colons, Melville makes use

of dashes to mark the rests rather than a conjunction. Once again Melville is highlighting

Metzger-Andersen 13

particular aspects without the superfluity of conjunctions. Focusing on the mysterious

Marquesan peoples, their customs, and the potential dangers the deserters could face.

Asyndeton is not the only stylistic technique used to describe the Marquesan people, nor is it the most effective. Melville also makes use of non-verbal techniques such as symbols. “Melville . . . [uses] emblems as well as words . . . [as an] alternate means of expressing his theme. Tattoos in Typee serve this function” (Berthold 561). By using tattoos as a stylistic device Melville is essentially “. . . converting his subject into human text . . . and manufacturing [that human] into a character for a text” (Berthold

563). The word “tattoo,” and its variants appear in the text no less than fifty-six times throughout fourteen chapters. The most occurrences of the word coming out of Chapter

Thirty, which is essentially the chapter that represents a final realization of the meaning of tattoos for Tommo. Overall tattoos are used non-verbally as warnings, to blend beauty and status, and finally as symbols of freedom and a source of an epiphany.

In chapter one Melville uses tattoos in lines eighty-three and eighty-five to describe the Marquesan chief and his wife, but the description of the tattoos themselves are prefaced with negative adjectives such as “blemish” and “gaudy.” Later in Chapter Six

Captain Vangs talks about the natives and their tattoos, again in the negative, as a warning for those men choosing to go ashore: “for if those tattooed scoundrels get you a little ways back into their valleys, they'll nab you . . . [another ships men went ashore and] only three of them ever got back to the ship again, and one with his face damaged for life, for the cursed heathens tattooed a broad patch clean across his figure-head”

(Melville 61-62). Describing the men as “tattooed scoundrels” and describing one of the men who was able to return to his ship as “damaged for life” makes those men with

Metzger-Andersen 14

tattoos appear dangerous and is meant to warn the men to stay aboard.

We know in spite of this warning that Tommo and Toby do not heed this cautioning and not only go ashore but also flee The Dolly and find themselves in the

middle of the Taipi Valley. Chapter Eleven illustrates their reaction to the natives, once

they had been established as friendly, and Tommo speaks of all the wondrous things about the natives: “that which was most remarkable in the appearance . . . [were] the elaborate tattooing displayed on every noble limb” (Melville 141). For the inhabitants of the Marquesas, “Tattoos . . . are a form of self-expression, a declaration that one’s person is, indeed, personal property and can be embellished accordingly” (Berthold 561). Not only that, but “tattooing was an elaborate social marking system, and the more tattooed an individual, the more power and prestige he or she possessed,” and though Tommo and

Toby were likely appalled at first by the marks, the Marquesan themselves wore their brands proudly (Bryant xvii).

We know that Tommo, at least, comes around to the beauty of tattoos as he remembers the tattoos of his valet in Chapter Eleven as “covered all over with representations of birds and fishes, and a variety of most unaccountable-looking creatures, suggested to me the idea of a pictorial museum of natural history” (Melville 150). And even later in Chapter Eighteen when describing Fayaway’s dear friend Marnoo:

his face was free from the least blemish of tattooing, although the rest of his body was drawn all over with fanciful figures, which . . . appeared to have been executed in conformity with some general design . . . The tattooing on his back in particular attracted my attention . . . Traced along the course of the spine was accurately delineated the slender, tapering and diamond checkered shaft of the beautiful 'artu' tree. Branching from the stem on each side, and disposed alternately, were the graceful branches drooping with leaves all correctly drawn and elaborately finished. Indeed the best specimen of the Fine Arts I had yet seen in Typee . . . The tattooing I have described was of the brightest blue, and when

Metzger-Andersen 15

contrasted with the light olive-colour of the skin, produced an unique and even elegant effect. (Melville 246-247)

Likewise he begins to recognize the differences among the tattoos as signs of status as

evidenced by his encounter with a native in Chapter 24:

the mystic characters which were tattooed upon his chest, and above all the mitre he frequently wore, in the shape of a towering head-dress, consisting of part of a cocoanut branch, the stalk planted uprightly on his brow, and the leaflets gathered together and passed round the temples and behind the ears, all these pointed him out as Lord Primate of Typee. Kolory was a sort of Knight Templar—a soldier- priest. (Melville 317)

By “reading” the tattoos, along with the dress, Tommo recognizes the man as both a

soldier and a priest.

Ultimately in Chapter Thirty, Tommo’s idea of tattoos changes drastically. No

longer are they a simple foreshadowing of danger or an unusual source of beauty, but a

representation of freedom. Tommo and Toby represented something dangerous to the

Taipis and they needed to react to that danger accordingly.

[T]he Taipis had every reason to worry that these two Westerners were the vanguard of a rear attack . . . Rather than kill them, which might anger their gods, or, worse, the French or American’s their strategy was to convert them. If they would eat and stay, sleep and play, copulate and marry, submit to rituals, taboos, and tattoos, then they would no longer pose a threat. Tommo . . . now realizes the deeper meaning of tattoo; it marks him as theirs. (Bryant xxiv-xxv)

In essence Tommo was able to “read” the tattoos and even appreciate the beauty of the

silent words on his native companions, but something about having one committed to his

own person left him fearing he would be forever “rendered hideous” (Melville 398).

Moreover, he knows that if he relents and gets a tattoo he would never “have the face to

return to [his] countrymen, even should an opportunity offer” (Melville 340). The

insistence that Tommo get a tattoo coupled with Toby’s suspicious disappearance and

Metzger-Andersen 16 confirmation that his “friends” truly are cannibals leads to the epiphany that his only chance of survival was to once again flee. In this instance tattoos, or his lack thereof, can be read as freedom.

As evidenced above, the stylistics of the travel narrative is simple yet sophisticated. Through Melville’s use of diaresis summation, hypotaxis, the blending of topographia and topothesia, mild usage of anaphora and asyndeton and non-verbal stylistics the travel narrative comes alive. These stylistic devices work together to create a complex adventure that is full of description, intrigue, and the discovery of not only a new world and its peoples but also the self-discovery of Tommo. This is certainly true for all the works within this category, but as this analysis has shown, it is especially true in

Melville’s first novel Typee.

Metzger-Andersen 17

Chapter Two: The Philosophical Narratives – “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”

The next category of stylistics in Herman Melville’s corpus is the Philosophical

Narratives. The works within the Philosophical Narratives are those that move slightly

past pure entertainment towards an investigation, of sorts, of a “truth” or knowledge. The

Philosophical Narratives are unlike the Travel Narratives in that although Melville is

writing from personal experience, the characters and their paths are almost wholly

fictional. The principle works within this classification are Mardi, White-Jacket, and

“Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Building on the devices used in the Travel Narratives,

Melville adds to his repertoire such stylistic techniques as mimesis and erotesis to create stories that are not only entertaining but also thought provoking.

Mardi, and a Voyage Thither is the first work in the Philosophical Narratives, but was Melville’s third work overall. Roughly based on Melville’s experiences aboard the

Charles and Henry, a whaling ship out of Nantucket, Mardi was the first story with completely fictional characters and plotline. Similar to its predecessors, Typee and Omoo, the story follows a sailor who deserts his ship in search of something more. It was the work that first spoke to Nathaniel Hawthorne who called Mardi “a book of ‘depths’ . . . that compel a man to swim for his life” (Delbanco 5-6). Inspired by the political turmoil in Europe at the time, particularly in France, Melville used digressive episodes to express his thoughts on those events. It was evident that he was pondering something deeper than simple adventure and possibly exploring the human condition as well as freedom.

Mardi was the first instance of Melville’s attempt to merge fact and fiction for the purpose of examining something more and even though it was not critically well received,

Metzger-Andersen 18

he returned to this inquisitive style with White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War after writing Redburn for his fans. Melville turned once again towards the familiar and used the time he spent aboard the frigate Unites Stated as a seaman in the U.S. Navy as a backdrop for White-Jacket. In this scathing account of life aboard a naval vessel Melville writes into the story “a displaced commentary on an ominous American reality”

(Delbanco 115). Although there is no direct link between White-Jacket and the abolishment of flogging as a disciplinary measure in the United States Navy, the disturbing accounts of those men the narrator witnesses being flogged surely played a small part to bring awareness to civilians (Delbanco 246). In White-Jacket Melville asks the question “Who can forever resist the very Devil himself, when he comes in the guise of a gentleman, free, fine, and frank?” proving without a doubt that this novel is not a simple adventure tale (Melville 150).

The same is true for the only short work classified as a Philosophical Narrative,

“Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street.” Inspired by Melville’s time spent in his brother’s law firm, “Bartleby” is far more than a simple account of life in an office.

Melville was inspired to bring “Bartleby” to his readers because of the time spent with his brother and the fact that in1852, “so many young men were looking for advantage in the brisk New York market [as] scriveners” (Delbanco 214). It is likely that he was also inspired to write about scriveners because of characters he read within Charles Dicken’s

Bleak House and Charles Briggs’s novel The Adventures of Harry Franco. Regardless of

Melville’s reasons for writing, “Bartleby” is a work of the Philosophical Narratives that best highlights the stylistics of this category.

Metzger-Andersen 19

Originally published as serialized installments in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine in

1853, “Bartleby” is often overlooked by critics stylistically. The complicated devices

Melville employs to create the multifaceted account in “Bartleby” are discounted in favor of a Marxist critique. To academics “ . . . the predominant themes in discussions of

‘Bartleby’ remain changes in the nature of the workplace in antebellum America and transformations in capitalism” (Thompson 395). Regardless of Melville’s purpose, the stylistic devices he uses make his authorial intent that much stronger. Melville makes use of many of the techniques from the Travel Narratives, but includes for the Philosophical

Narratives parataxis, reification, polptoton and epimone, mimesis and antithesis, and

finally a small, but important sampling of erotesis.

In the Travel category Melville uses hypotaxis to arrange the narratives because

those stories are straightforward adventure tales. Unlike those works classified as Travel,

the Philosophical Narratives have something just a little deeper going on. “Bartleby” is

about the “innate and incurable disorder” of the human mind therefore Melville leaves

many of the aspects of the story to the reader to distinguish (Delbanco 279). For this

reason, the hypotactic style does not work well and Melville turns instead to the parataxic

style.

This parataxic style begins almost immediately in the first paragraph when the

narrator speaks of Bartelby: “While of other law-copyists I might write the complete life,

of Bartleby, nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no materials exists for a full and satisfactory biography of this man” (Melville 4). Melville is leaving a lot about

Bartleby and his past up to not only the reader but also the narrator. This is in part because “Bartleby” is “a tale that intimates that there are some secrets that never can be

Metzger-Andersen 20 revealed and therefore raises the important question of how one can act and react in the face of incomplete knowledge and the possibility of total loss” and in part because

Bartleby’s past is almost inconsequential to the overall story (Weinstock 23). In fact, the absence of a defined past makes “Bartleby” all the more mysterious.

Melville uses parataxis to highlight another cryptic element besides Bartleby’s past: his enigmatic arrival. The narrator describes his first encounter with Bartleby: “In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning, stood upon my office threshold . . . I can see that figure now—pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby” (Melville 9). Interestingly prior to this happenstance “the lawyer does not say he met Bartleby; instead, Bartleby ‘appeared’ to him . . . the word appeared suggests a [strange] possibility: perhaps Bartleby quite literally appeared, as would an apparition” (Reed 247). This notion is further emphasized when the narrator happens upon Bartleby in the office one Sunday “holding the door ajar, the apparition of

Bartleby appeared” (Melville 16). Bartleby’s sudden and mysterious appearances almost suggest that he only exists in the narrator’s office, but nowhere else.

The final paratactic aspect I will address in “Bartleby” is the startling discovery made by the narrator about Bartleby after his death. The narrator states: “I hardly know whether I should divulge one little item of rumor, which came to my ear a few months after the scrivener’s decease . . . Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter

Office at Washington” (Melville 34). This anecdote serves to add yet another shroud of intrigue to Bartleby and at the same time call into question the entire narrative. The epilogue renders the narrator unreliable as “the supplemental status of the epilogue and its equation of dead letters with dead men compels a reevaluation of the narrative as a

Metzger-Andersen 21

whole and encourages the reader to consider Bartleby himself as a type of ‘dead letter,’

and his story as itself a rumor, an unsubstantiated report” (Weinstock 23). One can

hardly distinguish what is real from what is ethereal.

Aside from being shrouded in a clandestine history, Bartleby also has a host of

unique identifiers associating him as corpselike. For this purpose Melville uses

reification to create Bartleby’s ghastly descriptors. He has already been described as

“pallidly,” “forlorn” and essentially “pitiful,” but after his first encounter with the narrator, Bartleby is effectively compared to a statue. The narrator says,

His face was leanly composed; his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster- of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. (Melville 11)

The narrator has already described Bartleby as pallid and now refers to him as being

virtually inhuman as if he was a living cadaver. Melville brilliantly juxtaposes the dead

skin tone of Bartleby with the bust of Cicero.

The narrator then observes another deadlike quality about Bartleby: “he never

went to dinner” (Melville 13). He later learns the Ginger Nut brings him a handful of

ginger-nuts everyday about the same time, but he cannot confirm that he actually eats

them. Instead he ponders if perhaps Bartleby “lives, then, on ginger-nuts . . . never eats a

dinner, properly speaking” (Melville 13). Upon finding Bartleby in his office on a

Sunday he refers to him as having a “cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance” (Melville

16). Bartleby is even referred to as having a “mildy cadaverous reply” to the narrator

(Melville 20). Finally as Bartleby withdraws further into himself he is no longer a

productive scrivener, but instead “a fixture” in the office (Melville 22). Even when

Metzger-Andersen 22

Bartleby is truly dead he is referred to as being “profoundly sleeping” were it not for the

fact that his “eyes were open” (Melville 33). Bartleby has been a living cadaver for so

long that he is serenely more alive in actual death.

The transition of Bartleby from living cadaver to actual corpse is highlighted in

the story through the use of the word prefer. Melville cleverly blends polptoton and

epimone to emphasize Bartleby’s unwillingness to participate in work, and ultimately life,

as well as underscore how his preferences dictate those choices that eventually lead to his

death. The word prefer and its variants appear in the text 48 times overall. The first

instance of the word appears in lines 138-145. This is Bartleby’s first act of disobedience

as he replies to the narrator’s request to examine a document, “I would prefer not to”

(Melville 11). In this case the narrator reacts to the word with shock, but dismisses it as a

one-time occurrence, yet the entire exchange repeats itself in lines 166-181.

Eventually the word prefer comes to play a larger part in the office as a whole.

The narrator informs the reader “somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily

using this word ‘prefer’ upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions” (Melville 20). In

fact prefer becomes “a word that gently mocks the lawyer’s circumlocution, and its

anachronistic sound spreads around the office, infecting everyone . . . For Nippers, the

word ‘prefer’ has become a sanitized substitute for ‘kick his ass’ or ‘tell him to stuff it’ or

some such practical recommendation” (Delbanco 216). In lines 382-383 Nippers states, in front of Bartleby, “‘Prefer not, eh? . . . ‘I’d prefer him, if I were you sir’ . . . ‘I’d prefer him; I’d give him preferences, the stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray that he prefers not to do now?’” (Melville 20). He further taunts Bartleby in lines 391-399. He believes that

Bartleby would become a better worker “if he would but prefer to take a quart of good ale

Metzger-Andersen 23

every day” (Melville 20). When asked to withdraw from the conversation he replies, “Oh

certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should” taking one last jab at Bartleby as he leaves

(Melville 21).

This exchange stirs nothing in Bartleby and he remains ever unchanging in

demeanor; however his actions change drastically. He does nothing more than “stand at

his window” and while the narrator assumes he is giving his eyes rest from the weariness

of copying, yet Bartleby soon revealed that he was giving up much more. In line 426 he

states, “‘I have given up copying,’” yet when prompted by the narrator to either work or

leave he gives his standard reply, “‘I would prefer not’” (Melville 22). Eventually the

narrator moves across town and Bartleby prefers not to move from his spot resulting in confinement in the tombs, yet he still refuses to become a participant in life. Despite the narrator’s pleadings, offers, and a generous “gift” to the prisons grub-man, Bartleby continues to prefer not and ultimately chooses death over life.

Even in the face of all that Bartleby put the narrator through, he was never able to bring himself to rid his life of Bartleby completely. After he moves his entire office, there is something about Bartleby that brings the narrator back both to his former chambers and to the tombs. The likely reason for this is that the narrator sees something in Bartleby that reminds him of himself. This is due, in large part, to Melville’s use of mimesis in the story. The narrator spends the first paragraph of the story informing us about all the things that cannot be known about Bartleby, but he is purposely vague about his own past. The biography that we get is almost entirely related to his business and those men employed in the office previous to Bartleby.

Metzger-Andersen 24

Furthermore, the narrator would never have discovered that Bartleby was living in the office had he not been going “round his chambers for a while” himself (Melville 16).

He even remarks, “For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced aught but a not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby were sons of Adam” (Melville 17). He could not find the will to reprimand Bartleby either as he felt “something superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me for a villain if I dared breathe one bitter word against this forlorn of mankind” (Melville 20). One could speculate that Bartleby, for all the description of his pallid complexion, is a ghostly doppelganger of the narrator. Both men were abruptly removed from their original positions, with no reason provided to the reader, and both men found their way into law copying. The difference is that Bartleby refused to continue carrying on in a meaningless occupation any longer. The narrator even recognizes Bartleby’s actions as a form of

“passive resistance,” but remains unwilling to change the future that Bartleby represents for him. He is essentially powerless to avoid Bartleby’s fate.

In contrast to the Narrator/Bartleby dynamic, the other characters in the office are the result of Melville’s use of antithesis. Turkey and Nippers are basically one whole person although they are very nearly opposites. Turkey is the first of the copyists described and he is “short, pursy, [and] about [the narrators] age” (Melville 5). In comparison, Nippers is a “whiskered . . . rather piratical-looking young man of . . . five and twenty” (Melville 7). Turkey was invaluable to the narrator “all the time before twelve o’clock, meridian, [and] was the quickest, steadiest creature . . . accomplishing a

Metzger-Andersen 25

great deal of work in a style not easy to be matched,” but after noon “he was apt to be

altogether too energetic . . . he would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand . . .

[leaving] blots upon [the] documents” (Melville 6). Nipper was also “ very useful to [the

narrator]; wrote a neat, swift hand” yet his “the irritability and consequent nervousness . . .

were mainly observed in the morning” (Melville 7-8). This being true when “Nippers’

was on, Turkey was off; and vice versa” (Melville 8). They are the quintessential

antitheses to each other and as a whole the office works harmoniously until Bartleby

arrives and disrupts the natural order.

In the end, however, discovery that Bartleby may have worked at the Dead Letter

office prompts a visceral response from the narrator, which gives some clarity as to why

Bartleby created such chaos. This epiphany of sorts is conveyed through Melville’s use of erotesis. The narrator states:

Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letter, and assorting them for flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned . . . On errand of life, these letters speed to death (Melville 34)

The narrator finally believes that he understands why Bartleby behaved as he did. How can any person carry on in life after having worked in such a dismal place? Moreover the narrator mourns the unhappiness these lost letters have on those who never received them: “ [a] pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities” (Melville 34). He goes a step further and essentially asks his audience to consider what effect it has had, without actually asking. He laments, “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity” (Melville 34)! What else could have been done to save this man? What of the rest of us?

Metzger-Andersen 26

A far cry from the simple Travel Narratives, those works deemed Philosophical do not simply romanticize the world, they attempt to say something about the sinister nature of it. They become about more than simple adventures; they almost become a social commentary, but they tend to hold back just enough information to leave the reader alone in deciding meaning or intent. As evidenced above, Melville’s stylistic choices allow him to write his Philosophical works in this way. Through his use of parataxis, reification, polptoton and epimone, mimesis and antithesis, as well as erotesis Melville creates works that entertain and challenge the reader. He is exploring questions about life and bringing these issues into focus by using these specific stylistic techniques to highlight his themes.

Metzger-Andersen 27

Chapter Three: The Psychological Narrative – Moby Dick; or, The Whale

The third group in the stylistic categorization of Herman Melville’s body of works

is the Psychological Narrative. In the Philosophical Narratives, Melville moved away

from entertaining his audience and towards inspiring them to consider that there may be a

little more to life than adventure. The Psychological Narrative takes this notion a step

further as Melville challenges the reader to not simply acknowledge that something extra

exists, but to actually question what that extra is. Melville creates in Moby-Dick, the exemplary Psychological Narrative, by exploring erotesis further and expanding this technique to include more than a casual musing towards humanity. Gone is “the self-

conscious and transparent world of Mardi [and “Bartleby”]; here the idea lies implicit in

the image” resulting in a novel that is far more complicated to interpret than even

Melville anticipated (Millhauser 532).

Originally published as a three-edition volume, Moby-Dick; or, the Whale finally

hit shelves in November of 1851 as a single edition. Melville stated in a letter in 1850

that he was “‘halfway’ into ‘a strange sort of book’ about a whaling voyage,” but even he

had no idea the lasting effects the book would have (Delbanco 122). Strange is very

nearly the perfect adjective to describe the novel since the stylistic techniques that

Melville used in Moby-Dick were far more sophisticated than any style invented at the

time, yet the initial reaction to the novel was inconsistent. There were some people who

enjoyed the adventurous elements, some who enjoyed the educational and historical

elements, and many who did not enjoy the novel at all. Regardless of the lukewarm reception of the novel, Moby-Dick has since gone on to become an integral part of

Metzger-Andersen 28

American literature and was adopted into the Western Canon as one of the most

significant American novels of all time (Bloom 128).

Armed with such works as Thomas Beale’s Natural History of the Sperm Whale,

a memoir of a ship captain entitled Etchings from a Whaling Cruise, Milton’s Paradise

Lost, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and various works from Shakespeare coupled with

his “two years & more experience,” Melville created Moby-Dick and this is novel is far

more than a simple whaling adventure (Delbanco 123). Initially Melville coined his

novel “‘a romance adventure, founded upon certain wild legends in the Southern Sperm

Whale Fisheries, and illustrated by the author’s own personal experience, of two years &

more, as a harpooner” (Delbanco 123). Ishmael was the principle character and Ahab did

not make his first appearance until the Pequod had been out to sea for quite some time.

The more Melville wrote, however, the larger Ahab’s role became in the novel. In fact, it

is Ahab who makes Moby-Dick a Psychological Narrative because the “psychological

and moral power [comes from that notion that], freakish as he is, Ahab seems more part

of us than apart from us” (Delbanco 11). Moby-Dick is still decidedly a tale about

Ishmael’s journey on the Pequod, yet Melville uses Ahab’s crusade against Moby Dick to scrutinize various themes, both philosophically and religiously; the fundamental question being the nature of God.

It has already been stated that the stylistics of Moby-Dick were innovative to his

contemporary critics, but it is also important to note that “the writing [in Moby-Dick had]

a controlled intensity of which Melville had not been previously capable” (Delbanco 128).

This is due in part to the advanced stylistic techniques he used as well as the fact that he

took far more time to write Moby-Dick than his previous works. Melville pumped both

Metzger-Andersen 29

Redburn and White-Jacket out in less than four months while Moby-Dick took well over a

year to finish (Delbanco 124). As such, Melville was able to develop the novel’s

narrative and cultivate the progressive stylistic devices he used. Chief among these

stylistic devices are symbolism, personification, and attribution.

Unlike many of Melville’s other works, Moby-Dick cannot be analyzed as a

whole by examining a part. In the preceding narrative categories, a closer look at one or

a few chapters can epitomize the stylistics of the whole work, but in Moby-Dick, the sum

of the primary stylistic techniques appear in some, but not all, of the chapters and others appear throughout, thus the entire work must be considered for a thorough stylistic analysis. This is mainly because “if it is an omnibus of devices, as Moby Dick seems to

be, the devices must be judged for their effectiveness within the whole, not as if they we

undigested portions of poetry, essay, or natural history” (Weeks 156). As such this

chapter of the thesis will focus on many different chapters in Moby-Dick including, but

not limited to, “The Quarter-Deck,” “Sunset,” “Moby-Dick” and “The Whiteness of the

Whale.” These chapters best exemplify the important stylistic elements listed above.

It is nearly impossible to talk about the sum of Moby-Dick without talking about the principle stylistic device Melville uses: symbolism. Many critics read Moby-Dick as an allegorical novel that utilizes symbols. Rhetorically, symbolism and allegory are used interchangeably as there is a very thin line that separates the definitions of these two devices, but stylistically, the subtle differences of each device is important. It appears that Melville was fully conscious of at least one of these devices as he wrote and that he subscribed to the separateness of these techniques as he elevated the symbolic features of

Metzger-Andersen 30

the novel over the allegorical aspects. This is evident in a letter to Sophia Peabody

Hawthorne where he states:

At any rate, your allusion for example to the “Spirit Spout” first showed to me that there was a subtle significance in that thing—but I did not, in that case, mean it. I had some vague idea while writing it, that the whole book was susceptible of an allegoric construction, & also that parts of it were—but the specialty of many of the particular subordinate allegories, were first revealed to me, after reading Mr Hawthorne’s letter, which, without citing and particular examples, yet intimated the parts-&-parcel allegoricalness of the whole. (Parker 547-548 Moby-Dick)

While we only have Melville’s side of the conversation, we can assume that Sophia made mention of that allegorical nature of the “Spirit Spout” chapter, and from his response we can gather that any allegory in the chapter is coincidental. At least stylistically the focus is on the symbolism, not the allegory.

The most obvious symbol in the novel is the whale, and while it would be absurd to assume that anyone has anything new to say about Moby Dick as a symbol, it is important to point out its stylistic significance. Rhetorically Moby Dick represents

inquiry into the nature of God.

As a symbol of both a loving and a horrifically vengeful God (vengeful in this case because of the many attacks by whalers upon him), and presumed by superstitious seamen to be both ubiquitous in space (‘encountered at opposite latitudes at one and the same instance of time’) and immortal (‘for immortality is but ubiquity in time’), Moby Dick becomes the focal point of religious rebellion in the narrative. (Rogers 34)

This is the typical symbolic reading of Moby Dick, often considered allegorical since the

whale is mentioned throughout the novel. Stylistically, however, we can see that

Melville intended for Moby Dick to be a symbol, not an allegory, as the nature of the

symbolism changes from character to character.

For Ahab, Moby Dick symbolizes not only the traditional rhetorical

representation of the nature of God but also vengeance. In Chapter 36, “The Quarter-

Metzger-Andersen 31

Deck,” Ahab reveals “‘it was Moby Dick that dismasted me’” and thus he “‘will chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before [he] gives him up’” (Melville 139). Ahab speaks of the nature of Moby Dick existing behind a pasteboard mask and “‘be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, [he] will wreak . . . hate upon him’” (Melville 139). It is clear that Ahab is after the beast who robbed him of his leg, but moreover, he seeks the unknowable answer to the age old question(s): why does evil exist in the world, and to what extent is that evil delivered by God?

To everyone else, however, Moby Dick represents something different. Starbuck makes his interpretation of the white whale in “The Quarter-Deck” chapter as well. It is clear that he believes Ahab’s quest is ridiculous when he shouts “Vengeance on a dumb brute! . . . that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous” (Melville 139). It is also clear that he sees the whale as a distraction and potential loss of profits. He states,

I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in Nantucket Market. (Melville 139)

It is evident that Starbuck does not see the value in chasing a whale for vengeful purposes because it will not produce a profit, the sole purpose of a whaling expedition.

Similarly for Ishmael, the whale does not seem to represent quite the same thing as it does to Ahab, but it certainly does not signify the same thing as it does to Starbuck.

In Chapter 42, “The Whiteness of the Whale,” Ishmael surmises, “What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid”

Metzger-Andersen 32

(Melville 159). He expresses what exactly it is that Moby Dick is for him, but he does so

with trepidation: “I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form” (Melville 159).

For Ishmael Moby Dick is not quite an ominous force, but rather the absence of any force

at all. He says, “It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me”

because after much consideration on the color “there yet lurks an elusive something in the

innermost . . . hue, which strikes more panic to the soul than the redness which affrights

in blood (Melville 159-160). Also in “The Whiteness of the Whale” chapter, it becomes

evident that while Ishmael likens the color white “with spiritual things, remarking it is

‘the very veil of the Christian’s Deity’ . . . [he is focusing more on] negative association[s] . . . [such as] the dangers, for seaman, of milk-white fog and the repugnancy of albino men and creatures” (Rogers 34). He says near the end of the chapter

that “in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color”

(Melville 165). While Ishmael may not subscribe to Ahab’s idea that the white whale is

either God or an agent of God, it is clear that he does believe Moby Dick to be the embodiment of evil, or rather the absence of goodness.

Regardless of what Moby Dick means to the various characters, the one constant throughout the novel is the personification of the whale. While all the characters seem to personify the white whale, it is Ahab who attributes characteristically human qualities onto Moby Dick that are aspects of his own psyche. Ahab seems to be compelled by his vendetta against Moby Dick “to personify . . . [him and] to see conscious will in natural forces” (Austin 345). In Chapter 37, “Sunset,” Ahab refers to himself: “I’m demonic, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that’s only calm to comprehend itself”

(Melville 143). Similarly in Chapter 41, “Moby Dick,” the narrator states:

Metzger-Andersen 33

[t]he White Whale swam before [Ahab] as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some men feel eating in them . . . All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made assailable in Moby Dick. (Melville 156)

Ahab appears to believe that he understands Moby Dick and that he will destroy this white whale, because they are essentially one and the same.

In fact, Moby-Dick has been called “a book about a man who, ‘in battling against evil . . . becomes the image of the thing he hates’” and many of the same traits are shared by Ahab and Moby Dick (Delbanco 11). In Chapter 28, “Ahab,” Ishmael describes

Ahab’s scar: It “thread[ed] its way out from among his grey hairs, and continu[ed] right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, til it disappeared in his clothing, . . . a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish” (Melville 108). Moby Dick is also visibly scarred and described as having “three holes punctured in his starboard fluke” (Melville

138). In the “Moby Dick” chapter the description of the nature of both Ahab and Moby

Dick is correspondingly malevolent and vengeful. First Ishmael describes Moby Dick:

[T]here was enough in the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike the imagination with unwonted power . . . [such as] that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to specific accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults . . . he had several times been known to turn round suddenly [on his attackers], and, bearing down on them, either stave their boats to splinters, or drive them back . . . [so that it] seemed the White Whale’s infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent (Melville 155-156).

Moby Dick is described as having the human characteristics of forethought, intent, and intelligence while Ahab is presented as being almost primal and animalistic in his desires to hunt the white whale:

Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only and all- engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his old

Metzger-Andersen 34

acquaintances on shore, but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises . . . [he] was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge. (Melville 158)

Moby Dick wreaks his mischief on the unsuspecting sailors who dare give him chase and returns such evil with no regard to human life, but ultimately, Ahab’s quest to avenge his

lost limb is without the same regard. He cares not for the potential lives that will be lost as long as the white whale is destroyed.

Intriguingly the madness that consumes Ahab eventually infects the crew as well.

After a while Ahab is able to convince the men that Moby Dick is the epitome of evil through repetitive diatribes about him. Essentially the use of “point of view and thought presentation, namely the ways in which mental states and activities are attributed to groups” leads the crew to assume the responsibility of Ahab’s revenge quest (Palmer 82).

Ahab, through the use of excitement and the gold doubloon, creates an aura of adventure in the hunt for the white whale. In the “Sunset” chapter, he garners this camaraderie through the promise of the gold doubloon, alcohol, and the confession of how he lost his leg. Eventually the crew is drawn in and “[t]he long steel goblets were lifted; and to cries of and maledictions against the white whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffed down . . . once more, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew” and the oath was sworn (Melville142). Later in the “Moby Dick” chapter,

Ishmael says, “I, Ishmael, was one of the crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs . . . Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine” (Melville

152). Ahab has not only projected aspects of himself onto Moby Dick, but he has imbrued his vengeance on the crew as well.

Metzger-Andersen 35

Consequently Ahab’s retribution voyage leads to the senseless death of nearly the entire crew aboard the Pequod for which Ahab, not Moby Dick, is wholly responsible.

Throughout the book whenever Ahab is questioned about Moby Dick, he becomes in enraged. This is apparent to all, but only Starbuck has the confidence to voice concerns to Ahab directly about the blind vengeance he is displaying. In Chapter 109, “Ahab and

Starbuck in the Cabin,” Starbuck yells at Ahab, “‘let Ahab beware of Ahab’” (Melville

362). Essentially he is warning Ahab that he is becoming more whale than man and that he is putting his own retribution ahead of everything else i.e. the owners of the Pequod as well as the lives of those aboard. Moby Dick is rumored to be responsible for “several fatalities [to those who] had attended his chase,” and Ahab is no different as he captains his entire crew, save for Ishmael, to a murky tomb (Melville 155).

At this point Ahab’s “mental and physical sides of action and behaviour coexist and interpenetrate to the point where they are difficult to distangle. The mental network that lies behind [his] actions contains intentions, reasons, motives, purposes and causes, and . . . are often present in the discourse that is used to describe [his] action” (Palmer 85).

Ahab is constantly playing a dialogue in his head that relates to the Moby Dick, the existence and nature of God, and his motivation is made up of the convergence of these two notions. Thus Ahab has essentially become Moby Dick, hunting the white whale without human emotion. Starbuck pleads with Ahab in Chapter 135, “The Chase-Third

Day,” “‘Ahab . . . not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him’” (Melville 423). It was never about the hate that Moby Dick wreaked upon the world, but rather the hate that Ahab wreaked upon the white whale.

Metzger-Andersen 36

After considering the use of these stylistic devices, it is clear that Moby-Dick that this novel is wrought with psychological elements. Melville is unmistakably playing with such philosophical questions as the nature of God and using Ahab’s spite for Moby

Dick to psychologically advance the story. In the Philosophical Narratives Melville attempts to inspire the reader to ponder life’s unknowable questions, whereas the

Psychological Narrative attempts to demonstrate what happens to those who become consumed by answering those inquiries. So obsessively focused was Ahab on discerning the true nature of Moby Dick, he could see nothing beyond his own vendetta. Melville’s use of symbolism, personification, and attribution allow him to showcase Ahab’s eventual transformation into the beast he detested.

Metzger-Andersen 37

Chapter Four: The Satirical Narrative– The Confidence Man: His Masquerade

Although purpose and intent has been secondary to all other stylistic evaluations of Melville’s corpus, The Confidence Man is a novel where we cannot divorce meaning from the stylistics analysis. Melville stated that he wrote The Confidence Man blatantly to provide a satirical perspective of the hypocrisy of humanity as he saw it. As such it is aptly placed into the final stylistics category, The Satirical Narrative. Considering that

Melville had at his disposal various news accounts of a real-life swindler who preyed on citizens of New York by attempting to pass himself off as “an honest soul in need of an emergency loan” it is no wonder he chose this type of account to highlight a lacking of humanity (Delbanco 246). He made sure to include within his novel “thinly veiled caricatures of [real life] New York con men [such as] P.T. Barnum” (Delbanco 246).

Considering the satirical nature of the text, Melville’s readers were bemused when the book hit stores on April 1, 1857.

One of Melville’s contemporary critics remarked that “after reading ten or twelve chapters . . . found . . . that [he] had not yet obtained the slightest clue to meaning (in case there should happen to be any) . . . [and] as a last resource . . . read the work from beginning to end; and the result was that [he] liked it even less than before,” yet recent scholars of the novel are able to look back and see the immense value The Confidence

Man has to offer (Delbanco 247). Walter McDougall, American historian and Pulitzer

Prize winner felt so strongly about the value of Meville’s satire he dedicated a fair amount of the first chapter of his book, Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New

American History, to the novel. In the chapter, entitled “American Archtypes: What

Metzger-Andersen 38

Some Great Novels Tell Us About Ourselves,” he remarks that The Confidence Man

“holds up a mirror to the American people” and that “Melville took the risk of telling the

truth, as he saw it, about the trick Americans play on themselves in their effort to worship

both God and Mammon” (1-2). It is clear to see why the text has far more value to

readers today.

Melville’s stylistics in this novel was written in an intricate fashion. The complexly subordinated sentences of hypotaxsis could easily frustrate or distract the reader from the story, yet when analyzed closer, were meant to reveal an elaborate play on society. It is within these elaborate sentences that Melville interleaves characteristics that establish identification between the reader and the character. The relationship that he creates is not always one in which the reader relates to the character on a personal level.

Often times Melville will have a character who one connects with simply because that person is important to furthering the story. This is accomplished through the narrator, who at times can appear unreliable. Melville manipulates hypotaxis, his preferred style choice, to persuade the reader through that generated connection with the characters.

The players created in The Confidence Man lack both compassionate and charitable natures. This includes not only those who are conned but also the confidence man. All the characters described display doubt, mistrust, greed, and pride. It is in the

“confidence” they believe themselves to possess that they are lead to their own destruction. In reality, the “charity” they claim to hold only emerges when their hypocrisy is threatened by exposure or they believe that something will be gained from the endeavor. Despite their horrible qualities, however, these characters still retain characteristics that the reader can relate to. Melville accomplishes this partly through the

Metzger-Andersen 39

hypotacticly-subordinated descriptions that are rich with a commoratio scheme and partly

through paradiegesive digressions that help emphasize the actual integrity of those involved. These stylistic devices are evident throughout the novel, but a thorough analysis of the first chapter reveals not only the effectiveness of this style but also highlights how Melville draws the reader’s attention to events or characters in order to foreshadows the events that will undoubtedly follow.

Melville begins this play on society with a simple one-sentence paragraph that includes the first of many important digressions. He provides us with a narration of a man who appears on the waterside. Melville calls him the “man in cream-colors,” and describes him as appearing as “Manco Capac at the Lake Titicaca” (9). Manco Capac, known in Incan Mythology as both the first King of Cuzco and the God of the Sun, establishes credibility with regard to the mysterious man. Melville wants us to trust him, and we should have confidence that any action that he engages in is unerring. This mysterious man is an important feature in the grand scheme of the story and Melville announces this value though the digression. The fact that this sentence stands alone to act as the first paragraph of the novel and is free from the more complex subordination that compromises the framing of future sentences further emphasizes this instantaneous assurance.

Melville slowly immerses the reader into the complexity of his style in the second and third paragraphs. The hypotactic style is coupled with the use of commoratio to emphasize “the man in cream-colors’” separateness from those people at the waterside.

We learn that the stranger has “neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel” (Melville 9).

The spectators with “shrugged shoulders” and “titters, whispers, [and] wonderings” thus

Metzger-Andersen 40

greet him (Melville 9). They are shrinking away from the man, who is, as Melville states,

“in the extremest sense of the word, a stranger” (9). These descriptions lend to making us

feel as though we are just as separated from the crowd as the stranger. We can sense

already that this crowd does not have any confidence in this man, nor would they take

anything he had to say into any serious consideration. This immediate distrust from the

crowd is important to note, as the stranger has a fundamental message to deliver that these passengers will disregard.

The stranger delivers this message after the reader receives pertinent information that makes up the basis of the entire novel. After making his way aboard a ferry, the stranger finds himself face to face with the wanted poster offering a reward for the capture of a “mysterious impostor” (Melville 10). This information is delivered through a carefully placed digression in the form of a poster that describes a man whose actual description cannot be trusted as accurate. What is given is “purported to be a careful description of his person” (Melville 10). This serves to create a suspicion in the reader toward any male character, including the trusted stranger. As there is no factual account to who this impostor may be, any man aboard the ferry could be the one depicted on the poster. This is an example of the type of superficial connection that Melville’s narrator creates. The reader is not expected to relate to the impostor or the crowd, but instead be wary of every character that they meet.

Ironically, as the crowd gathers around the poster meant to warn them about a possible danger, they are being pick-pocketed and hustled by men described as

“chevaliers” (Melville 10). Melville mentions these chevaliers no less than four times throughout the same sentence. These men are not like the impostor described in the

Metzger-Andersen 41 poster. Melville describes these men as if they are a staple to traveling on a ferry. He uses them to establish an ominous, yet familiar danger and compares them to wolves.

One chevalier “hawks” the stories of some infamous bandits of the time who had all met the end of their careers with death rather than fortune. These “exterminations” are met with “gratulation” to all “except those who think that in new countries, where the wolves are killed off, the foxes increase” (Melville 10). This is another important digression that should leave the reader indifferent towards the chevaliers and foreshadow the coming of the Confidence Man. The chevaliers, like wolves, are a dying breed, whereas the impostor, like the cunning fox, will survive.

The stranger, observing this scene, senses an opportunity to enlighten the crowd.

He carefully makes his way up to stand by the poster and delivers the following message:

“Charity thinketh no evil” (Melville 11). He does so in a “mildly inoffensive” way to ensure that his message is received well (Melville 11). The missive is ironic because we can assume that nearly everyone who reads the bulletin is thinking evil thoughts about the impostor. Our trusted stranger would have everyone, including the reader, think of others with charitable rather than malign thoughts.

This urging from the stranger is in direct juxtaposition to the suspicion that was created with the reward poster. The disparity crafted in the contrast of the poster and message is another important foreshadowing device. The connection that Melville created between the reader and the stranger in the beginning of the novel serves to disillusion the reader’s perception of the story they are being told presently. The reader should still be suspicious of the characters they are to meet, but they should be careful in who they decide to mistrust.

Metzger-Andersen 42

This calls into question the reliability of the narrator. One moment the narrator

gives the reader a reason to trust the stranger and the next he gives the reader a reason to

distrust any male character in the novel. At the same moment the reader receives yet

another message from the stranger that allows for the possibility of trusting again. He

allows for the prospect that there may be genuine characters that are actually charitable

and mean to cause others no harm.

The crowd, however, does not appreciate the stranger’s message in this manner.

The unspoken consensus of him is that he is a “simpleton, harmless enough, ... but not

wholly unobnoxious” (Melville 11). In this sentence, commoratio is used to stress the

stranger’s harmlessness and simple mind. Therefore the crowd does not see the connection that the stranger is trying to make between the wanted poster and reality.

Instead they disregard his message and reduce it to nothing more than the musings of a simple man. They make “no scruple to jostle him aside,” but one man does smash his hat down upon his head (Melville 11). This act is in direct opposition to the message the stranger is promoting.

Rather than be discouraged by that person’s lack of charity, the stranger alters the message thus: “Charity suffereth long, and is kind” (Melville 11). Charity is ever present in both the stranger and his message. He will “suffereth long” and be “kind” just as this crowd should; however, they receive this message with irritation rather than gratitude.

This time they cast aside the stranger with “epithets and buffets” (Melville 11). The stranger remains diligent to his self appointed task. The narrator describes him as “non- resistant” and not wanting to “impose” himself on the “fighting characters” within the crowd (Melville 11). Here commoratio is used to stress the stranger’s passive nature.

Metzger-Andersen 43

This further emphasizes the crowd’s opinion of the stranger as a “simple-man,” but the reader should see an undeterred man seeking to accomplish a goal. At this point the entire crowd accosted the stranger, but rather than give them up as a lost cause, he continues to deliver his message of charity.

He does so by carrying his slate “shield-like” before him as he crosses back and forth across the deck (Melville 11). Each time altering his message at the “turning points” in his path from “[c]harity endureth all things” to “[c]harity never faileth” (Melville 11-

12). Throughout this spectacle, “[t]he word charity ... remain[s] ... uneffaced” and only the latter words in the message are changed (Melville 12). This is a multi-sentence commoratio that strives to stress the importance of having charity with regard to others.

According to our stranger, if one has charity, one can suffer and be kind, and if they

believe in charity, it will never fail them. It is an important foreshadow to the overall

story since it is through the utilization of charity that any one person to be conned.

In direct contrast to the stranger and his message of charity, we are presented with

a description of the “barber of the boat” who is setting up shop for the day (Melville 12).

Melville employs use of commoratio to describe the “shop-like,” “arcade or bazaar” area

of the boat (Melville 12). It is here that the “crusty-looking” barber is “throwing open”

his shop (Melville 12). Unlike the stranger who was careful not to disturb the crowd in

delivering his message, the barber was accomplishing his goal “without overmuch

tenderness for the elbows and toes of the crowd” (Melville 12). Where the stranger

remained eerily mute throughout his endeavor, the barber loudly calls that the crowd

should “stand still more aside” than he has already caused them so that he may deliver his

own message (Melville 12). With much careful precision, he hangs a “skillfully executed”

Metzger-Andersen 44 sign that displayed two words alongside the picture of a barbers hand ready to shave

(Melville 12). These words stand out as an antithesis to the stranger’s plea for charity as they are simply “No Trust” (Melville 12).

Interestingly the crowd’s reaction to the barber’s message is different from their reaction to the stranger. The barber’s message is not met with anger nor is it assumed that the barber is a simpleton. The crowd does not feel this message of “No Trust” is as intrusive as the stranger’s message of charity. This is a message that the crowd is familiar with as these words are “not unfrequently seen ashore” at other shops (Melville

12). The lack of trust is widely accepted among them, whereas the presence of charity is foreign.

Their reaction to the stranger’s continued path only emphasizes this fact.

Although the stranger has remained silent through his endeavor, his presence alone causes “stares to change into jeers, and some jeers into pushes, and some pushes into punches” (Melville 12). This commoratio serves to emphasize the lack of both patience and charity that the crowd has toward the stranger and his message. They have grown weary of his desire to spread charity among them. They hope to dissuade him from his self-appointed duty of spreading his message, but despite the many “jeers,” “pushes,” and

“punches” he receives, he continues in his mission “moving slowly up and down” the boat altering his message at the turns (Melville 12).

The progressively violent nature of the crowd does little to phase the stranger; however he soon accepts defeat after becoming entangled with two porters moving a passenger’s trunk. The porters are described as “accidently or otherwise” veering the trunk directly into the stranger causing him to nearly fall (Melville 12). Although the

Metzger-Andersen 45 porters attempted to “hail [him] from behind” the three collide nonetheless. It is in this collision that the stranger “involuntar[ily] betrayed that he was not alone dumb, but also deaf” (Melville 12). This does little to change the opinion of the crowd towards him; his near fall only further adds to their belief that his message should be disregarded as the ravings of a simpleton.

An important significance at this point in this chapter is the revealing of the stranger as deaf. At the time when Melville wrote, there was much dissension among the masses about what a person who was deaf could comprehend. Deaf persons were thought of as having the comprehension skills of a small child, therefore this betrayal of the stranger to himself only further underscores the crowd’s original belief about the stranger. He is merely a simple man who knows a few phrases from the bible. Any child in Sunday school can imitate what he has heard, but whether or not that child understands when it is appropriate to deliver that message is different. For this reason the crowd can see the message that the stranger has attempted to share with them can be wholly disregarded. To the crowd the message was delivered not from a reputable source, but rather from the mind of simple, deaf man. They are unaware of the emphasis that has already been placed on the stranger as reputable, therefore it is the reader alone who is left to trust in the message of charity that he attempted to deliver.

Consequently, the stranger is, for the first time since he boarded the ship, discouraged from the task he set himself to do. The encounter with the porters coupled with “his reception thus far” leads the stranger to admit defeat (Melville 13). He takes leave of his path across the deck of the boat and seeks solace in “a retired spot on the forecastle” near the ladder the “boatmen” use to traverse the ship (Melville 13). He finds

Metzger-Andersen 46 a quiet place away from the crowd who has taken every opportunity to not only disregard his message but also to act contrary to that message towards him directly.

This action by the stranger, to disengage himself from the crowd, gives the crowd cause to see him as not wholly unintelligent. Had he retired himself to the lower decks it would have been evident that he had bought a ticket other than that of deck-passage. To the crowd he “was not entirely ignorant of his place,” but considering he had no luggage to start with, purchasing a more expensive ticket would not have made sense (Melville

13). The lack of luggage leads the crowd to suppose that the stranger may also have bought the deck-passage because he did “not have a long way to go” (Melville 13). This would make more sense, however, had he not “seemed to have come from a very long distance” already (Melville 13).

Melville uses this commoratio to draw the readers’ attention back to the stranger’s appearance. This man who appeared in a “God-like” fashion at the waterside has been reduced to taking consolation at the foot of a ladder on the deck of the boat. This is a man whose journey may end shortly a few stops down the river, but from where his journey began cannot be said. The reader could easily begin to see the lack of the stranger’s luggage as suspicious. Although we were set up to believe that the stranger is a trusted ally in this play, the origin of his person is no more clear to anyone as that of the man on the wanted poster. This focus back on the stranger near the end of the chapter brings to mind the question of whether this “man in cream-colors” could be one of the many alias that the impostor is credited of having.

Even the clothing the stranger wore created an aura of suspicion as his suit has “a tossed look,” but he was “neither soiled nor slovenly” (Melville 13). The reader can

Metzger-Andersen 47 safely assume that this man is not merely a bum, but that he has recently had the means to cleanse himself. Yet he appears “linty” as though “he had long been without the solace of a bed” (Melville 13). Regardless of this observation, the stranger had not been described as tired or weary, but, upon procuring his spot on the deck, becomes overtaken by “tired abstraction and dreaminess” (Melville 13). Almost as if the stranger was in a hurry to make himself disappear in the crowds mind. This man who was shortly bustling himself back and forth amongst the deck with his slate of charity is now reduced to a sleeping man.

Described as being “overtaken by slumber,” he droops, relaxes, and reclines until he lay motionless (Melville 13). Melville compares the stranger’s journey to sleep, in a digression, to a snow storm in March that steals across the land while the farmer sleeps only to startle him at the sight when he wakes in the morning. The commoratio describing the strangers gradual slide to sleep, coupled with the digression, is meant to foreshadow the coming of the Confidence Man and lead the reader to suspect the stranger, even further, as the first sight of him. Just as the snow overtakes the farmer when he is not looking, so too will the Confidence Man appear when the crowd least suspects him.

The stranger’s quick retreat into sleep in a spot off the beaten path of the deck is meant to draw suspicion. Soon the crowd, who wished to have nothing to do with the stranger to begin with, will have forgotten that he was even aboard the boat. By the time anyone has a notion to think of him again, he will have vanished as if his destination had been reached.

This is the final digression of the chapter and perhaps the most important.

Whether the reader wants to believe that the stranger is the first of many pseudonyms of

Metzger-Andersen 48

the Confidence Man or not, one thing is abundantly clear: the Confidence Man will soon make an appearance. The stranger has been urging the crowd to heed his message of charity. When the Confidence Man does rear his head, he will be preying on that very principle. He will seek to capitalize on the hopes that one person has indeed listened to the stranger’s message of charity.

Melville accomplishes this revelation through the digressions in his complexly subordinated sentences. A hasty reading of the novel allows the digressions to deter the reader from the deeper understanding of their intent, but with a careful look one can see

the purpose with which Melville wrote them. He intends for the digressions to create a

connection between the character and the reader. This relationship is designed to reveal

important information to the reader that helps further the story along. This information is

important not only within the chapter in which it is revealed, but also foreshadows future

incarnations of the confidence man and the cons that come later in the novel. The

coupling of reader and character serves to draw the reader into the story. Upon further

analysis it becomes clear that Melville intentionally and artfully generated these

attachments by means of the digressions. These digressions explain why the reader often

identifies with certain incarnations of the Confidence Man, even though he is clearly an

unscrupulous character. Melville’s careful use of paradiegesis is an especially effective

literary device that he uses to manipulate the reader in the direction that he chooses.

Metzger-Andersen 49

Conclusion

As this thesis has demonstrated Melville’s works naturally break down into four stylistic categories: (1) Travel, (2) Philosophical, (3) Psychological, and (4) Satirical.

The chief works within the Travel Naratives being Typee, Omoo, and Redburn with the main focus on Typee. These works shared the theme of a semi-autobiographical adventure on the high seas. While not devoid of other elements, the focus was very much about the journeys of the characters and little time was spent on character development.

These narratives focused instead on the actions and descriptions of the characters travels.

As such, the stylistic devices of diaresis summation, hypotaxis, blending topographia and topothesia, anaphora and asyndeton, and non-verbal stylistics characterize these narratives.

The Philosophical Narratives, however, are unlike the works within the Adventure category as they involved more discussion among and about the characters. Mardi,

“Bartleby the Scrivener,” and White-Jacket epitomized Melville’s Philosophical genre with “Bartleby” as the principle work discussed. It was discovered that in these works,

Melville began experimenting with stylistic devices that convey a more express purpose than simple entertainment. These works, with their complexity and stylistic variances, are precursors to the psychological masterpiece, Moby-Dick. It was in these narratives that Meville employed the use of parataxis, reification, polptoton and epimone, mimesis and antithesis, and erotesis to encourage his reader to ponder something more.

Decidedly there are many of Melville’s works that could be described as psychological, especially many of Melville’s short works, but Moby-Dick was the only

Metzger-Andersen 50 work that truly matched the definition. Therein Melville created a novel emulative of a deep psychological questioning of the nature of God, among other things. The principle stylistic devices used to analyze this great work was the elevation of symbolism over allegory as well as personification, and attribution. These devices indicated Melville’s stylistic maturity from the Philosophical Narrative and allowed him to present the chilling account of mans inability to escape himself as well as the incapability to find answers to unknowable questions.

The final stylistic category discussed was that of Melville’s satirical work.

Similarly to the Philosophical and Psychological Narratives elements of satire can be found in numerous works by Melville, yet there was only one work that he characterized as a satire, The Confidence Man. This novel attempted to hold a mirror to the hypocrites of the world Melville lived in. These hypocrisies were highlighted by the nuanced use of specific stylistic devices. Through the use of hypotaxis, commoratio, and paradiegesive digressions, The Confidence Man showcases Melville’s increasing stylistic sophistication and the growing complexity from simple to multifarious narration.

Metzger-Andersen 51

Glossary of Literary Terms as Defined and Adapted from A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms and Analyzing Prose by Richard A. Lanham

Allegory – Extending a metaphor through an entire speech, passage, or throughout sections of a work.

Anaphora – Repetition of the same word or idea at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.

Antithesis – anything that is representative of exact opposites especially in regards to characters especially in personality, morality, and/or description.

Asyndeton – Omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses.

Attribution Theory1 – an umbrella term for various models that attempt to explain the processes by which individuals explain the causes of behavior and events; in this context how an individual attributes themselves on to other individuals, objects, and/or creatures.

Commoratio – emphasizing a strong point by repeating it several times in different words.

Diaresis Summation2 - Dividing a subject into subheadings to provide a brief abstract.

Epimone – Frequent repetition of a phrase or question, in order to dwell on a point.

Erotesis – A “rhetorical question,” one in which implies an answer but does not give or lead us to expect one

Hypotaxis – A style of writing that ranks ideas for the reader.

Mimesis – Generic term for forms of imitation that includes mimicry, representation, and nonsensuous similarity.

Paradiegesis – a narrative digression used to introduce or emphasize one’s argument.

Parataxis – A style of writing that leaves the ranking of ideas up to the reader.

Personification – attribution of human qualities to non-humans.

1 As defined in Social Psychology by Robert Baron and Nyla Branscombe and Alan Palmer’s article Attribution Theory and developed by Kristal Metzger-Andersen 2 As defined in A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms by Richard Lanham and developed by Kristal Metzger-Andersen

Metzger-Andersen 52

Polptoton – Repetition of words either from the same root, in different forms, or with different endings.

Reification – Attribution of inanimate qualities to a person.

Symbolism – the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character.

Topographia – Exact description of a place or object.

Topothesis – Description of imaginary, nonexistent places or objects.

Metzger-Andersen 53

Bibliography

Arvin, Newton. Herman Melville. New York: Grove Press, 2002. Print.

Austin, Allen. "The Three-Stranded Allegory of Moby-Dick." College English. 26.5

(1965): 344-349. Print.

Barbour, James. "The Composition of Moby-Dick." American Literature. 47.3 (1975):

343-360. Print.

Baron, Robert A. and Nyla R. Branscombe. Social Psychology. 13th ed. New Jersey:

Pearson Press, 2011. Print

Baym, Nina. “Melville’s Quarrel with Fiction.” PMLA. 94.5 (1979): 909-923. Print.

Bellis, Peter J. “Melville’s Confidence-Man: An Uncharitable Interpretation.” American

Literature. 59.4 (1987): 548-569. Print.

Bernstein, John. Pacifism and Rebellion in the Writings of Herman Melville. Norwood,

PA: Norwood Editions, 1976. Print.

Berthold, Michael C. “‘Portentous somethings’: Melville’s Typee and the language of

captivity.” New England Quarterly. 60 (1987): 549-567. Print.

Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. New York:

Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994. Print.

Breitwieser, Mitchell. “False Sympathy in Melville’s Typee.” American Quarterly. 34.4

(1982): 649-677. Print.

Bryant, John. Melville and Repose: The Rhetoric of Humor in the American

Renaissance. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1993. Print.

Buell, Lawrence. “Melville and the Question of American Decolonization.” American

Literature. 64.2 (1992): 215-237. Print.

Metzger-Andersen 54

Chase Richard. “Melville’s Confidence Man.” The Kenyon Review. 11.1 (1949): 122-140.

Print.

Cole, Rachel. “At the Limits of Identity: Realism and American Personhood in Melville’s

‘Confidence Man.’” Novel. 39.3 (2006): 384-401. Print.

Corbett, Edward P.J. Rhetorical Analyses of Literary Works. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1969. Print.

Creech, James. Closet Writing/Gay Reading: Case of Melville's "Pierre" Univ Chicago,

1994. Print.

Delbanco, Andrew. Melville: His World and Work. New York: Knopf, 2005. Print.

Doctorow, E.L. "Composing Moby-Dick: What Might Have Happened." Kenyon Review.

26.3 (2004): 55-66. Print.

Drew, Philip. “Appearance and Reality in Melville’s The Confidence-Man.” ELH. 31.4

(1964): 418-442. Print.

Dubler, Walter. “Theme and Structure in Melville’s The Confidence Man.” American

Literature. 33.3 (1961): 307-319. Print.

Elmore, Owen. “Melville’s ‘Typee’ and ‘Moby-Dick.’” Explicator. 65.2 (2007): 85-88.

Print.

Firebaugh, Joseph J. “Humorist as Rebel: The Melville of Typee” Nineteenth-Century

Fiction. 9.2 (1954): 108-120. Print.

Garner, Stanton. The Civil War World of Herman Melville. Lawrence: University

Press of Kansas, 1993. Print.

Giles, Todd. “Melville’s BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER” Explicator. 65.2 (2007): 88-

91. Print.

Metzger-Andersen 55

Glenn, Barbara. "Melville and the Sublime in Moby-Dick." American Literature. 48.2

(1976): 165-182. Print.

Goudie, S.X. “Fabricating Ideology: Clothing, Culture, and Colonialism in Melville’s

‘Typee.’” Criticism. 40.2 (1998): 217-236. Print.

Holmes, David I. “Authorship Attribution.” Computers and the Humanities. 28.2 (1994):

87-106. Print.

Ivison, Douglas. “‘I saw everything but could comprehend nothing’: Melville’s Typee,

travel narrative, and colonial discourse.” ATQ. 16.2 (2002): 115-130. Print.

Kimball, Samuel. "Uncanny Narration in Moby-Dick." American Literature. 59.4 (1987):

528-547. Print.

Lamb, Robert Paul. "Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish: Teaching Melville’s Moby-Dick in the

College Classroom." College Literature. 32.1 (2005): 42-62. Print.

Lambrou, Marina, and Peter Stockwell, eds. Contemporary Stylistics. London:

Continuum, 2007. Print.

Lanham, Richard A. Analyzing Prose. Second ed. London: Continuum, 2003. Print.

. . . A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. Second ed. Berkeley: University of California Press,

1991. Print.

Lawrence, David Herbert., Ezra Greenspan, and James T. Boulton. Studies in Classic

American Literature: D.H. Lawrence. Ed. by Ezra Greenspan ... Cambridge [u.a.:

Cambridge Univ., 2003. Print.

Leech, Geoffrey N., and Mick Short. Style in Fiction: a Linguistic Introduction to

English Fictional Prose. Second ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. Print.

Metzger-Andersen 56

Leyda, Jay. The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville 1819-1891

Volume One. New York: Gordian Press, 1969. Print.

--- The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville 1819-1891 Volume Two.

New York: Gordian Press, 1969. Print.

Mahlberg, Michaela. "A Corpus Stylistic Perspective on Dickens' Great Expectations."

Ed. Marina Lambrou and Peter Stockwell. Contemporary Stylistics. London:

Continuum, 2007. 19-31. Print.

Martin, Robert K. “‘Enviable Isles’: Melville’s South Seas.” Modern Language Studies.

12.1 (1982): 68-76. Print.

Maud, Ralph. “Archetypal Depth Criticism and Melville.” College English. 45.7 (1983):

695-704. Print.

McDougall, Walter A. Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History 1585-

1828. New York: Harper Collins, 2005. Print.

McIntyre, Dan. "Deixis, Cognition and the Construction of Viewpoint." Ed. Marina

Lambrou and Peter Stockwell. Contemporary Stylistics. London: Continuum,

2007. 118-130. Print.

Melville, Herman. Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. Ed. John Bryant. New York:

Penguin Books, 2001. Print.

. . . Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas. Seven Novels: Complete and

Unabridged. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2008. 163-330. Print.

. . . Mardi. Ed. Tyrus Hillway. New Haven: College and University Press, 1973. Print.

. . . Redburn: His First Voyage. Seven Novels: Complete and Unabridged. New York:

Barnes & Noble, 2008. 673-850. Print.

Metzger-Andersen 57

. . . White-Jacket: The World in a Man-of-War. United Kingdom: Echo Library, 2010.

Print.

. . . Moby Dick. Ed. Hershel Parker and Harrison Hayford. New York: W.W. Norton &

Company, 2002. Print.

. . . “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street.” Melville’s Short Novels. New York:

W.W. Norton & Company, 2002. 3-34. Print.

. . . The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.

Print.

Miller, Edwin Haviland. Melville: a Biography. New York: Persea, 1975. Print.

Millhauser, Milton. "The Form of Moby-Dick." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art

Criticism. 13.4 (1955): 527-532. Print.

Mitchell, Thomas R. “Dead Letters and Dead Men: Narrative Purpose in ‘Bartleby, the

Scrivener.” Studies in Short Fiction. 27 (1990): 329-338. Print.

Nrgaard, Nina, Rocío Montoro, and Beatrix Busse. Key Terms in Stylistics. London:

Continuum International Pub. Group, 2010. Print.

Palmer, Alan. "Attribution Theory: Action and Emotion in Dickens and Pynchon."

Contemporary Stylistics. Ed. Marina Lambrou and Peter Stockwell. London:

Continuum, 2007. 81-92. Print.

Parker, Hershel. Herman Melville: A Biography. Volume I, 1819–1851.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Print.

. . . Herman Melville: A Biography. Volume II, 1851–1891. Baltimore: The Johns

Hopkins University Press, 2005. Print.

. . . "The Isle of the Cross and Poems: Lost Melville Books and in the Indefinite Afterlife

Metzger-Andersen 58

of Error." Nineteenth-Century. 62.1 (2007): 29-47. Print.

Pericles Lewis, Modernism, Nationalism, and the Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2000. Print.

Pinsker, Sanford. “‘Bartleby the Scrivener’: Language as Wall.” College Literature. 2.1

(1975): 17-27. Print.

Ptz, Manfred. "The Narrator as Audience: Ishmeal as Reader and Critic in Moby-Dick."

Studies in the Novel. 19 (1987): 160-174. Print.

Reed, Naomi C. “The Spector of Wall Street: ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’ and the Language

of commodities.” American Literature. 76.2 (2004): 247-273. Print.

Reiss, Timothy J. “Mapping Identities: Literature, Nationalism, Colonialism.” American

Literary History. 4.4 (1992): 649-677. Print.

Reynolds, Michael S. “The Prototype for Melville’s Confidence-Man.” PMLA. 86.5

(1971): 1009-1013. Print.

Rogers, Robert. "The Humanism of Moby-Dick." Humanist. 68.6 (2008): 33-37. Print.

Rogin, Michael. Subversive Genealogy: The Politics and Art of Herman Melville.

New York: Knopf, 1983. Print.

Rosenberg, Warren. "'Deeper than Sappho': Melville, Poetry, and the Erotic".

Modern Language Studies. 14.1 (1984): 70-78. Print.

Rovit, Earl. “Melville and the Discovery of America.” The Sewanee Review. 100.4

(1992): 583-598. Print.

Ryan, Susan M. “Misgivings: Melville, Race, and the Ambiguities of Benevolence.”

American Literary History. 12.4 (2000): 685-712. Print.

Metzger-Andersen 59

Sanborn, Geoffrey. The Sign of the Cannibal: Melville and the Making of a Postcolonial

Reader. Durham, NC: Duke Univ., 1998. Print.

Sandberg, Alvin. “Erotic Patterns in ‘The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of

Maids.’” Literature and Psychology. 18.1 (1968): 2-8.

Schueller, Malini Johar. “Colonialism and Melville’s South Seas Journeys.” Studies in

American Fiction. 22.1 (1994): 3-16. Print.

Shroeder, John W. “Sources and Symbols for Melville’s Confidence Man.” PMLA. 66.4

(1951): 363-380. Print.

Serlin, David Harley. “The Dialouge of Gender in Melville’s The Paradise of Bachelors

and the Tartarus of Maids.” Modern Language Studies. 25.2 (1999): 80-87. Print.

Short, Mick. Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays, and Prose. London: Longman,

1996. Print.

Sluyter, Andrew. “Colonialism and Landscape in the Americas: Material/Conceptual

Transformations and Continuing Consequneces.” Annals of the Association of

American Geographers. 91.2 (2001): 410-428. Print.

Stern, Milton R. “Some Techniques of Melville’s Perception.” PMLA. 73.3 (1958): 251-

259. Print.

Stoll, Elmer E. "Symbolism in Moby-Dick." Journal of the History of Ideas. 12.3 (1951):

440-465. Print.

Tanyol, Denise. “The Alternative Taxonomies of Melville’s ‘The Encantadas.’” The New

England Quarterly, Inc. 80.2 (2007): 242-279. Print

Metzger-Andersen 60

Thompson, Graham. “‘Dead Letters! . . . Dead Men?’: The Rhetoric of the Office in

Melville’s ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener.’” Journal of American Studies. 34.3 (2000):

395-411. Print.

Tichi, Cecelia. “Melville’s Craft and Theme of Language Debased in the Confidence-

Man. ELH. 39.4 (1972): 639-658. Print.

Urbanczyk, Aaron. “Melville’s Debt to Milton: Inverted Satanic Morphology and

Rhetoric in ‘The Confidence Man.’” Papers on Language & Literature. 39.3

(2003): 281-306. Print.

Verdonk, Peter. Stylistics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.

Walsh, Clare. "Schema Poetics and Crossover Fiction." Contemporary Stylistics. Ed.

Marina Lambrou and Peter Stockwell. London: Continuum, 2007. 106-117. Print.

Watt, Ian. "The First Paragraph of The Ambassadors: An Explication." Essays in

Criticism. 10 (1960): 250-274. Print.

Weeks, Donald. "Two Uses of Moby-Dick." American Quarterly. 2.2 (1950): 155-164.

Print.

Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew. "Doing Justice to Bartleby." ATQ. 17.1 (2003): 23-42. Print.

Wright, Nathalia. “Form as Function in Melville.” PMLA. 67.4 (1952): 330-340. Print.

Zimmerman, Brett. “Teaching Melville and Style: A Catalogue of Selected Rhetorical

Devices.” Style, 37.1 (2003): 47-66. Print.