I -

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN ETHIC

IN HERMAN MELVILLE'S

PIERRE; OR THE AMBIGUITIES

Edward L. Raniszeski

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

March 1973

Approved by Doctoyral Committee

____ Advisor ^partment of^Znglishu

Graduate School Rejjr'esentative © 1973

EDWARD L. RÀNISZESKI

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. il

ABSTRACT

It is the basic assertion of this paper that the text of Pierre shows, through its irony and complex moral picture, an acceptance of the basic tenets of Christian theology.

After the publication of Pierre in 1851 Herman Melville's earlier reputation with British and American audiences sharply declined. Most of his contemporary critics charged the hook with indecency and anti-Christian sentiment.

This is a reading which goes against the grain of major critical appraisals of the book. The study surveys, reviews, and analyzes -the history of critical comments concerning Pierre and demonstrates that much of the poor reception can be traced to cultural and literary prejudices.

A significant part of the research deals with the various moral alternatives afforded Pierre by his society. It is seen that he may elect as his spiritual guide Christianity, the Protestant-Christian Ethic, Virtuous Expediency, Idealism, or Atheism. Each variable is defined and discussed at length in an effort to expose its Individual philosophical roots and how it ultimately pertains to Pierre.

The major portion of the investigation is devoted to the textual demonstration of how Melville manipulates Pierre into circumstances that illuminate the fallacy of all the alternatives with the exception of Christianity.

Each of the major and minor characters is shown to play an important role in the gradual growth toward Christian realization by identifying him as an archetypal representative of ethical quantities in Pierre's society. It is finally shown in the case of each character that he is truly Christian or only Christian in name, and that there is a definite correlation between the favor and sympathy Melville shows toward characters and the degree to which they are Christian.

Pierre; Or The Ambiguities is shown to be a reaffirmation of the validity and effectiveness of basic Christian principles. Ill

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I must give my sentiments and gratitude to more than

Mount Greylock, for unlike Melville during the production of

Pierre, I was blessed» with an abundance of help and inspira­ tion from fellow men. My natural gratitude is warmly entended to my mentor and dear friend, J. Robert Bashore, for his valuable and undying interest in my project. To him there is little I can say to aptly describe my appreciation. Many persons have read the manuscript for me and to them all I am grateful. The members of my graduate committee have always been warm, helpful, and encouraging to me and my thanks is here recorded. To Dr. Charles Crow», whose sharp insights and keen understanding of Melville led me essentially to undertake this project, I am eternally grateful. My debt to Dr. Robert Meyers for his close guidance in the apprecia­ tion of artistic fora and criticism is beyond survey. To

Dr. Gerald Rigby I owe thanks for his being more than a graduate school representative, but an interested and con­ scious scholar whose comments were always illuminating and constructive. A special note of thanks must also be extended

Dr. Ralph Wolfe and Dr. Sheldon Halpern for coming to my aid when all seemed dark and impossible. IV

Naturally ray debt goes beyond and deeper than the actual writing of this study. Thanks must be given to Dr. Robert

S. Ward of The University of Miami for his wisdom as a teacher and unforgettably warm friendship. I most cherish the many long and chartless talks that we enjoyed together which helped me know the importance of knowing. To my friend

F. E. Black and my students with whom I debated the issues of my study, I offer my thanks. So many others have been forces in this study without knowing it that I find it difficult to thank them all individually. I would especially like to thank Milton Stern and Geoffrey Clive for their intense studies which have been a constant source for my paper.

I owe thanks to the clerical staff of the Bowling Green

English Department for their ever-present courtesy and promptness. I shall not attempt to account what I owe my wife; it is too sacred, and is too deeply rooted in our love.

I find it most fitting, therefore, to dedicate this to her and my mother and father.

Edward L. Raniszeski V

TABLE OP CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER ONE: ANTECEDENTS FOR PIERRE ...... 8

Reception and reputation ...... 8

CHAPTER TWO: SECULAR HUMANISM vs. SUBJECTIVE TRUTH . . . .42

Two Christian alternatives in Pierre ...... 42

Five moral alternatives opento Pierre ...... 50

Christianity...... 50

Protestant-Christian Ethic ...... 51

Virtuous Expediency ...... 52

Idealism...... 53

Atheism...... 55

CHAPTER THREE: PIERRE, FAITHLESS VICTIM OF MORAL DUALISM...... 64

Fate and free will: dual agents of despair and isolation...... 74

Pierre's faith vs. fatalism and free will...... 81

Growth and degeneration: ironic forces in Pierre. . .89

Possibilities for romantic justification of Pierre's guest...... 95

Pierre's rejection of moral idealism: three approaches ...... 102

Pierre's unconscious motives ...... 105

Pierre's conscious motives ...... 112

Pierre as Hamlet 113 VI

Pierre as Galahad...... 127

Pierre as Christ ...... 135

Pierre as Sensuous lover ...... 146

Pierre as Satan...... 166

CHAPTER FOUR: ISABEL AND LUCY, AGENTS OF MORAL EQUIPOISE...... 175

Lucy: a female Enceladus...... 189

Isabel the ambiguous ...... 202

CHAPTER FIVE: THE MINOR CHARACTERS AS MORAL INDICES. . . 211

Plotinus Plinlimmon: a moral zero ...... 213

Reverend Falsgrave and Glen Stanly: unions of opposites...... 220

Mary Glendinning: ruler of a social theocracy ... 228

Other minor characters as moral extremes ...... 236

SUMMARY...... 249

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 252 INTRODUCTORY

Literary studies concerning the works of Herman

Melville have with regular frequency gravitated to Moby-Dick

(1851); and, such intense concentration has, at times, had

an adverse effect on the reputation of that work as well as

on the critical estimation of most of his later stories. The

sometimes overexuberant critics of Melville’s '’masterpiece”

have dived so deeply into its mysteries that they have made

Moby-Dick seem frighteningly incomprehensible. A trend away « from concentration on Moby-Dick in Melville scholarship needs

to be encouraged. Within the past few years such a reassess­

ment of critical judgments has begun which not only uncovers

the lesser known works but adds a degree of objective analysis

(both literarily and socially) to the treatment of the

entire canon.1 Certainly, refocusing critical scopes on

Pierre; Or The Ambiguities (1852), Israel Potter: His

1 Seet-'Edgar A. Dryden's Melville’s Thematics of Form: The Great Art of Telling the Truth, Baltimore, 1968; H. Bruce Franklin’s'The Wake of the Gods : Melville’s Mythology, Stan­ ford, 1963; Martin L. Pops’ The Melville Archetype, Kent, Ohio, 1970; Joel Porte’s The Romance in America: Studies in Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville and James, Middletown, 1969; and John D. Seelye’s Melville; The Ironic Diagram, Evanston, 1970. 2

Fifty Years of Exile (1855), The Piazza-Tales (1856), The

Confidence-Man (1857), Clarel (1876), etc. cannot but shar­

pen our perception regarding Melville’s art.

Pierre is, I believe, a pivotal book for Melville. It

is the next book after Moby-Dick and one in which, I contend,

Melville may have stopped experimenting with technique and

continued to wrestle with the metaphysics that Ahab and

Ishmael synthesized from Melville’s earlier characters.

It seems very possible that the Pequod's voyage might have

been only a beginning of an armada of new ideas which

Melville went on to develop in his next four attempts.

It seems certain, however,'that Ishmael's floating tomb

of new knowledge did finally arrive home safely and is more

vibrantly reworked in Pierre. Whatever the proofs, exegene-

tic studies are always, to some degree, speculative and,

therefore, we will not be here primarily concerned with

Pierre's ability to provide intellectual impetus for The

Confidence-Man, Clarel, and others that follow. Pierre is

of primary interest here--though without doubt, Melville's

artistic and intellectual development can be marked as a continuous march forward from Typee (1846) through The Con­ fidence Man. What makes Pierre; Or The Ambiguities so important, from a genetic point of view, is the fact that 3

in it Melville says that he "writes as he pleases." He

throws conventional standards to the wind and commits him­

self to the economic and social "annihilation" that he

spoke of to Hawthorne after the dismal reviews of Moby-Dick.

Pierre subtracts from its conclusions even the smallest

degree of softness that might be detected in Moby-Dick.

Pierre is as stylistically and philosophically free a book

as Melville ever wrote.

In considering a work such as Pierre one is instantly

impressed by its multiple complexities, for better or no.

Depth of metaphysics and complexity of design are certainly characteristic of Melville from Mardi; and a Voyage Thither

(1849) to the end of his writing career, and it is this very

intensity of vision and design that has baffled some and has left other critics grief-stricken. It is due to this fact and an almost obstinate unwillingness on the part of most American critics of his time to champion change and newness (they called it "the vain and the vulgar") that

Melville was committed to oblivion. Modern America, too, responded to the non-salt-water romances with much the same confusion, as the polarity of critical opinion attests.

For instance, Darrell Abel cited "Pierre /as/ Melville’s worst book"; while Grant Watson hopes that someday America 4

will grow into "Melville’s best book".^ Although interesting,

such critical conflict provides large degrees of uncertainty

concerning the importance of Pierre and other such novels

in the Melville canon. Especially blatant regarding Pierre,

such dichotomous criticism has developed for all of Melville’s

works from Mardi on. This seems to indicate that a need

exists for new studies which move the understanding of

Melville's later fiction off center and into a critical

appreciation of the post-1851 writing based upon its own

merit. An intense study of Pierre should help to uncover

some of the little understood and largely forgotten aspects

of Melville's late art.

The major intent of this paper is two-fold. The study will hope to act as an antidote to some of the shortsighted,

overly caustic, and sometimes toxic critical notions attached

to Pierre, while at the same time asserting that Melville's

intentions for the romance were religious--and, primarily

Christian. This view is, of course, critical heresy.

2 Darrell Abel, American Literature: Literature of the Atlantic Culture, vol. 2 in 4 vols. (New York: Baron's Educational Series, Inc.), p. 412. 5

Ever since its publication, Pierre has been read as an awkward romance which indicts Christianity and its paradoxi­ cal principles. Contrary to this received view, the study will examine the possibility that Pierre indirectly reaf­ firmed the principles of Christ and accepted the major doc­ trines of American puritanism (actually Dutch Reform) that had descended to Melville personally. The tragedy of Pierre

Glendinning, it seems to me, is not the tragedy of one who, because he took up the teachings of Christ and his disciples and expected them to realistically function in the world, was crushed by the chemic forces; rather it is the tragedy of one who embodies the ethic of Christ’s humanism in doctrine and yet fails the test of faith that the world presents. No longer satisfied to rely on "presentiments," Pierre takes

"worldly" recourse .against his presentiments, and accepts isolation, loss of faith, disgrace, death, and finally damnation as his final course.

It is the tragedy, as I see it, of the rejection of the ethics of Christ’s doctrine when the ethic is made to seem suspect by the tempting, imposing forces of the world. It is the case of Job. But Melville’s Job is functioning in the industrial, fast-moving, impersonal world of nineteenth century America. The book serves as an indictment not of 6

Christianity, but of the false idealism Melville associated

with the transcendentalists. Pierre fails not because of

his Christianity, but in spite of it. He fails because he

is unable to realize that Christ’s doctrine never promised

that the world of Man would be heaven--as Saddle-Meadows had unrealistically led Pierre to conclude.

Pierre condemns Christianity as promulgated by the

instruction and example of Reverend Falsgrave, Mary Glen-

dinning, his heritage, and his community. This is where

Melville’s displeasure with Christianity arose. His greatest wrath is spent on the hypocrite. It is twisted and deformed

Christianity-immature Christianity--but not the word of

Christ that Melville disputes. Pierre realizes, as Job, in the final stages of the book (Book XXIII) that "there is a mysterious inscrutable divineness in the world--a God--a

Being positively present everywhere," but he does not real­ ize, as Job, that many of the elements of the world are discordant to His word and are therefore ready to destroy

Man as soon as he unguards himself and loses faith.

Pierre, for Melville, was not the last shout of the tormented dying man as so many critics have concluded.

True, Melville was weary and disheartened by the quasi­ 7

failure of The White Whale in his own country and was like­

wise economically frustrated by his inability to please the

public and himself at the same time. But though Pierre

shows Melville's anxiety, it does not confirm his displea­

sure with his personal lot in this world. That had become merely a rhetorical, psychological debate which was now

second in importance to his ”Kraken"--to his all-investing

interest in the things unknowable; to things deeper than the world's seeming, surface realities. Pierre is a book concerned with Universals, with Man--not a man. CHAPTER ONE:

ANTECEDENTS FOR PIERRE: RECEPTION AND REPUTATION

Four of Melville’s five books written during the

years between 1846 and 1850 were enough to make popular

America think that they had indeed roused up a Scott of

their own from the primeval landscape. Although Mardi, the exception to this early success and acclaim, was looked upon as a similar type of "adventuresome travel book," it contained darker thoughts and less understandable imagery than did Typee or Redburn. The general critical and popular assertion was that the elements of romance were faultier in

Mardi and the style cumbersome. It was widely accepted that Melville had indeed written an inferior book. Although

Redburn and White-Jacket were not financial successes, they did help to absolve Melville's reputation after Mardi.

Melville appeased, so it seems, the critics as well as set many an American heart at ease now that he had returned to his good sense. The threatened schism was over and nature, once again, had triumphed.

As Melville settled down to write Moby-Dick he had more to reflect on than where Ahab’s last voyage was taking him.

In a letter to Evert Duyckinck he said, "Dolt & ass that I 9

am I have lived more than 29 years, & until a few days ago,

never made close acquaintance with the divine William.

Ah, he’s full of sermons-on-the-mount, and gentle, aye, q almost as Jesus. I take such men to be inspired.His

friend Hawthorne, whom Melville idolized with lavish praise

in his "Review of Mosses from an Old Manse," inspired him

to new insights and expectations for the American writer.

In his essay, Melville said,

They argue such a depth of tenderness, such a foundless sympathy with all forms of being, such an omnipresent love, that we must needs say that this Hawthorne is here almost alone in his genera- tion--at least, in the artistic manifestation of these things.^

Commenting on the significance of Hawthorne’s influence on

Melville, F.0. Mattheissen has noted that

Melville’s efflorescence came as an immediate response of his imagination to the possibilities that Hawthorne's had opened before him. Stirred by this evidence of "the increasing greatness" among American writers. . . . This meditation brought him to his first profound comprehension of the nature of tragedy. This was the charge

3 Allen Hayman. "The Real and the Original: Herman Melville’s Theory of Prose Fiction," Modern Fiction Studies, VIII (Autumn 1962), 211-32.

Literary World, (August 17, 1850), 125. 10

that released Moby-Dick, and that carried him in Pierre to the unbearable desperation of a Hamlet.

Melville now submerged himself in the metaphysics of the unknown, dark world into which the Leviathan had dragged

Ahab and him. Subjected also to the prodding "power of blackness" in Hawthorne’s work

he declared in a famous letter to Hawthorne, writ- tne in June of 1851 while he was completing Moby- Dick: "My development has been all within a few years past. I am like one of those seeds taken out of the Egyptian Pyramids, which, after being three thousand years a seed and nothing but a seed, being planted in English soil, it developed itself, grew to greenness, and then fell to mould. So I. Until I was twenty-five, I had no development at all. From my twenty-fifth year I date my life. Three weeks have scarcely passed, at any time be­ tween then and now, that I have not unfolded within myself.6

It was in the summer of 1851 when Melville first got the chance to read in his Berkshire friend’s Ethan Brand about the sin of isolation and pride that doomed that quester who sought for "the Unpardonable Sin." In retrospect, the en­ tire Melville canon beginning with Mardi demonstrates that

"there are also touches of Hawthorne, deepened and more embittered, in Melville's use of the theme of corroding

5 American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1941, p. 189. 6 Hayman, p. 213. 11

secret sin, and in the play of light and shadow in a por­ trait J’?

It seems almost certain that Hawthorne's influence on Melville was reaching its peak between 1849 and 1852.

Before 1852 . . . reports of Melville's manner and behavior have quite a different emphasis /than his later years./; we hear of his extrava­ gant mimetic energy in telling stories, his power of vividly recreating the actual scenes and char­ acters of his adventures, his way of raising ulti­ mate questions about Truth and Being quite offhan­ dedly, like any topic of conversation.8

Yet after his encounter with Hawthorne and with the Euro­ pean philosophers and divines whose works he had ironically borrowed from the supreme Victorian, American moralist,

Evert Duyckinck, whom Mumford called "a purely bookish man,"^

Melville "might write to Hawthorne: 'My dear Sir, a pre­ sentiment is on me,--I shall at last be worn out and perish, like an old nutmeg-grater, grated to pieces by the constant

Alexander Cowie, The Rise of the American Novel» (New York: American Book Company, 1948), p. 390.

8 Warner Berthoff, The Example of Melville (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 58.

9 Lewis ¿¿Mumford, Herman Melville: A Study of His Life and Vision (Rev. Ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962), p. 135. 12

attrition of the wood, that is, the nutmeg. . . .

Melville was now ready to write books from the head as well

as the heart.H It is in this capability of insight from

both angles of vision that Melville's contemporary critical

nemesis lay. Melville's excitement at the discovery of a

"new and elevated aspect of American life!" as he was to

say in a letter to his publisher, Richard Bentley, had

kindled his creative fires. "Melville was writing with

furious energy in the first three years (1850-1852) after

his removal with his wife and son from New York to Arrowhead

in Pittsfield."12 Moby-Dick was finally completed and the

American reviewers were somewhat unsympathetic. They found

Melville's "new romance" startling in its reliance upon

horror and blasphemy, but did find the core of the plot

to be somewhat redeeming in its adventurousness.

10 Geoffrey Stone, Melville (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1949), p. 187.

11 For an impressive, concise discussion of influences on Melville, especially his later years, see Chapter I of William Braswell's Melville's Religious Thought; see also Morton Sealts' Melville's Reading: List of Books Owned and Borrowed for a broader study.

12 Richard Chase, Herman Melville: A Critical Study (New York: Macmillan, 1949), p. 103. 13

The Dublin University Magazine, with steady opacity, said Moby-Dick was quite as eccentric and monstrously extravagant in many of its incidents as even Mardi, but was a valuable book because it contained an unparalleled mass of information about the whale.

Some complained about the tediousness of the many irrelevant

interruptions between the direct action of the Pequod and

the white whale. Melville was necessarily and understand­

ably disappointed by the shortsightedness of the critics.

Again, the financial rewards were not there for Melville or his publishers. Melville could read the implications clearly in order to succeed with the public he would have to sacri­ fice a large measure of his aesthetic--he would have to com­ promise his art in order to survive annihilation.

How Melville considered his quandary is unknown. The speculative critics who follow a psychological vein have a field-day with this problem.Most of them surmise that

13 Mumford, p. 135.

1^ See Dr. Henry A. Murray’s ninety page introduction in the 1949 Hendricks House edition of Pierre which considers it Melville’s "spiritual autobiography in the form of a novel"; E. L. Grant Watson in "Melville's Pierre" (New England Quar­ terly, III, (930, 195-234) sees the book as Melville's reali­ zation of self and concludes that, therefore, this is "the greatest of Melville's books"; Alan Lebowitz's Progress into Silence (1970) considers the book a representation of Mel­ ville's continued search for identity through his character heroes. See also Lewis Mumford's Herman Melville (1962) and Lawrance Thompson's Melville's Quarrel With God (1952) for psychological explanations of Melville's motivations. 14

the author of Pierre; Or the Ambiguities was functioning

under the brand of stress and concern that does not classi­

cally nurture great works of art. Those who attempt to

attach Melville's personal psychological condition to the

resulting art form point out the frailties of symbol, image,

structure, dialogue, plot, theme, and philosophy which they

find abounding in Pierre. Melville is accused by a number

of critics of "forcing" a form that is inconsistent with

the ideas in Pierre.Although offering impressive argu­ ments, it will serve Melville readers well to remember that

the information concerning this time in Melville's life is so scarce that such critical readings are largely hypothetical.

Determining when Melville thought of the story, Pierre

is difficult. Almost as problematic is a close estimation of when Melville actually began to work on his text. Although some critics still rely on the theory that Melville became apathetic toward writing as Bert Bach does in asserting that

"in late 1851 Herman Melville, weary from his struggles to see Moby-Dick through publication, had no burning ambition for his next fictional production," the evidence suggests

15 r. p. Blackmur, "The Craft of Herman Melville: A Putative Statement," in The Lion and the Honeycomb. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1955), pp. 124-144. 15

that Melville was vibrantly interested in his upcoming work.16

The various extant collections of Melville’s correspondence,

journal entries, and accounts by friends and family suggest

it is likely that Melville began his initial jottings three

to five weeks after the completion of Moby-Dick. His first

definitely attributable reference to the new book came in

his famous letter to Sophia Hawthorne dated January 8, 1852.

But, there does remain a letter, in Melville’s hand, addres­

sed to Rufus Wilmot Griswold on December 19, 1851, which

Merrell R. Davis and William H. Gilman, the scholarly edi­

tors of Melville’s letters, suggest makes early reference to

the work in which Melville was engaged. In response to an

invitation to be among the celebrated guests of an upcoming

Cooper Demonstration, Melville wrote Griswold:

Sir--I have been honored by receiving an official invitation to attend the Cooper Demonstration to be held in New York on the 24th of this month.-- My very considerable distance from the city, con-

16 Bert C. Bach, "Narrative Technique and Structure in Pierre" in Studies in the Minor and Later Works of Melville, ed. Raymond E. Hull, (Hartford: Transcendental Books, 1970), p. 5. 16

nected with other reasons, will, prevent my com­ pliance . . .17 /italics mine/

Mumford tells us that "in November, 1851, the Hawthorne

family had moved away from the Berkshires, and Melville

settled to his work, in the spring of 1852, on the north

porch that faced Mt. Greylock. . . ."13 Also,

to Mrs. Morewood in Pittsfield, his condition was very simply a "morbid excitement which will soon injure his health." Her letter to George Duyckinck of December 28, 1851, gives us a symptomatic picture of Melville during the writing of Pierre: "now so engaged in a new work as frequently not to leave his room till dark in the evening when he for the first time during the whole day partakes of solid food. .

The entire manuscript was completed at Arrowhead in

the Berkshires between the winter of 1851 and late spring of the following year. The grey, clothbound book of 495 pages appeared in book stores in America in November, 1852.

Because Bentley had broken off negotiations with Melville after his famous letter of April 16, 1852, no London edition

The Letters of Herman Melville (New Haven: Yale Uni­ versity Press, 1960). They say, "Melville’s ’other reasons’ . . . seem to have included an engagement for Christmas day at the Morewoods and a concentrated labor on Pierre." p. 144n

18 Mumford, p. 137.

19 Berthoff, p. 47. 17

was forthcoming.20 The book finally appeared in a blue cloth edition of American sheets by the Harpers’ London subsidiary of Sampson, Low, Sons and Company. Although the book was competitively priced ($1.25 in the Harper’s and 8 shillings and 6 pence in London) it sold few copies.^1 "In the thirty- three years between 1854 and 1887, exactly three hundred copies were sold. The last Harper’s report, on March 4,

1887, showed 79 copies on hand; the plates were melted five days later." (In order to put Pierre's reception into a completely accurate perspective we must keep in mind that the figures cited above by Howard and Parker include the destruction of nearly half the first edition in the Harper's warehouse fire of December 10, 1853 and the subsequent reprinting of only two-thirds of the number of the lost

20 Bentley demanded extensive revisions of the text from Melville as well as having refused any substantial advance of money to the author. See Davis and Gilman, Letters, p. 149. 21 For complete information see Meade Minnigerode, Some Personal Letters of Herman Melville and a Bibliography» (New York: Brick Row Book Shop, 1922). 22 The Writings of Herman Melville: The Northwestern- Newberry Edition, general ed. Harrison Hayford (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971), Pierre; or The Ambi­ guities, p. 393. All internal citations from Pierre are in reference to this edition. All subsequent footnote refer­ ences pertaining to this text will be designated "NNE". 18

books in 1855.) A first edition Pierre currently demands

the highest auction prices and is the rarest in the Melville

canon.

The reputation of Pierre has always been somewhat nebu­

lous and many contributing factors for this condition may

be cited. A primary cause, however, was the immediate

impact of the overwhelmingly negative critical opinion

directed..to the book soon after its release from Harpers.

Few truly lucid readings were given and little copy space

was devoted to more than surface themes and the vile thoughts

which insulted the sensibilities of society. Accordingly, 23 "commentary on Pierre died away with the last reviews.”

And, by 1901

William Dean Howells /in his Heroines of Fiction/ silently passed by Melville when he expressed the opinion that "if we put aside the romances of Haw­ thorne and the romantic novels of Cooper, we can hardly find much fiction of American scope and import before the Civil War."2^

The waves of influence from the earlier reputation of Pierre

stood for a good number of years, while the handfulloff perceptive readings from Melville's contemporaries became

23 NNE, p. 393.

24 Cowie, pp. 387-88. 19

lost in obscurity.

Only recently the reputation of Pierre has been given

attention. With this new interest has come all varieties

of approaches and qualities of critical work, but the

important thing is that emphasis is now being placed upon

one of the least known or appreciated works of Melville.

To a modern reader of Pierre the inherent problems in the

book should seem apparent, but it should also be clear that

they are not so voluminous or distracting that the work

should suffer under the weight of the inaccurate criticism

of Melville's day or that of our own century.

A generation of amateur efforts on the part of’ critics have served largely to explain away rather than to explain works of art. And in the case of Melville, it must be repeated, these have tended so far to deflect from any comprehensive study of the works.

It is now obvious from the state of Melville scholarship

that the reliance upon the antediluvian critical masters is

to be seriously questioned. This is not to say that there have not been valuable contributions made--and brilliant ones at that--but, we must move now to consider the fresh

and unplowed ground that still remains large in Melville scholarship. The new trend toward exploration of such

25 Matthiessen, p. 479. 20

virgin land was heralded in the early 1950's when one critic

declared:

Melvillian criticism that begins, as it should, from the premise that Melville is one of the won­ ders of America, would perform a service at this point by putting the intellectualizing, the abstrac­ ting, the chop-logicizing talent of the man into as ardent communication with his humanity as pos­ sible. 26

We can no longer accept the same premises for literary judg­ ment as did those who were bound in and limited by the lack of aesthetic distance that plagued the New England literati of Melville’s day. The norms and criteria for judgment need to be moved from prejudices to objectivity,leading eventually to réévaluations of the art work exclusive of such things as social taboos or the mental state of the writer. Whether or not Pierre is Melville is an interesting question, but an unimportant and unnecessary one for any answer would, at best, be conjecture. Speculating and forming answers based on biographical comparisons does nothing to elucidate the romance. We need to concentrate on it and free it from the historical perspective within which it was written and first evaluated. We must come to understand it in spite of its historical limitations, not because of it. We must recognize

26 Marius Bewley, "A Truce of God for Melville,” Sewanee Review, LXI, (1953), 683. 21

and study its trends and modes objectively as we do the so-

ciety of the age that produced it. It is one thing to study

a work in its historical context and quite another to study

it from its historical context. Twenty years ago, Professor

Perry Miller asked,

are we more likely to reach what /Elmer/ Stoll calls ’’adequate appreciation of the story" /with­ out extracting from the story something that is not in i_t/ by following those later researchers, already dubbed the "externalists," who construct so prosy a biography of Melville as to show indubitably that the poor man could never have written an imaginative book.2?

Review of the responses to Pierre by Melville’s contem­

poraries suggests that its cool reception was due to the

fact that Melville’s new book did not adhere to the current

literary vogues of the day.23 More specifically, however,

is the fact that "the sombre techniques of Hawthorne seem

2 7 "Melville and Transcendentalism," Virginia Quarterly Review, XXXIX, (1953), 558.

23 Many of the most renowned Melville scholars concur on this point. For instance, Perry Miller devotes much of The Raven and the Whale to discussing social factors which des­ troyed Melville’s fame while he asserts that Pierre is, in fact, a literary plus for Melville; Alexander Cowie in The Rise of The American Novel has said, "Melville sinned blackly against the orthodoxy of his time. He was perhaps basically no more unorthodox than Emerson, but whereas Emerson’s indi­ vidualism ultimately carried him to uplands of optimism which he shared with people who reached the same goal by more con­ ventional paths, Melville's dissent pitched him into moods of bleak despair and bitter cynicism which barred his later 22

to have influenced 'Benito Cereno' and Pierre." What made

"Hawthorne's sombre analysis," as F. 0. Matthiessen called it,

attractive to only a small number of American readers also accounts for E. L. Grant Watson's finding that "there is no record left that anyone understood the inner, significance of

/Pierre/."30 In fact, The Literary World in its piece on

Pierre, August 21, 1852, admitted that "ordinary novel readers will never unkennel this loathsome suggestion /of the impracti cality of virtue/."31 The book was doomed: Melville had broken the critics and reviewers of Melville's day. This, it seems to me, is not surprising. The unorthodox nature of Melville's best fiction worked against his contemporary reputation and success as a novelist. He wrote neither historical romance nor sentimental domestic novel, both of which forms were extremely popular with the reading public" (232); "Pierre the Ambiguous" (Hound and Horn, II, 1929, 107-118) by S. Foster Damon reports that "this clean-hearted, genial coura­ geous Melville had suddenly produced a book so vitriolic in purpose, so mystical in style, and so intense in melodrama, that the critics gathering their desperate wits before the unknown enemy, adopted as one man the 'stern but just' attitude: they damned it. . . . Reading it today, one can easily see that the trouble lay with the times, not with Melville" (109-110).

29 Cowie, p. 405.

30 Matthiessen, p. 190; and E. L. Grant Watson, "Mel­ ville's Pierre," New England Quarterly, III, (April 1930), 232.

31 The Literary World, XI (21 August, 1852), 118. 23

the "fit-the-book-to-the-society" rule that had been estab­

lished by Irving and the many regular romancers of his day.

Cooper had encountered America's wrath as well for such works as Home as Found and some of his comments and insinua­ tions in "The Littlepage Trilogy," but he was safe from their total disapproval because of the "sacred classics" of his earlier days.52 Melville had no such insulation of reputation. If anything his reputation was a public debit.

He had shown earlier signs of leading a literary schism and was, therefore, held suspect almost continually through­ out his career. Quite assuredly, the reception of Moby-Dick did not help Melville's chances in Pierre. Charles Greene in the August 4, 1852 Boston Post review of Pierre speaks very plainly about Pierre's chances; "After the delivery of such stuff as Mardi and The White Whale, are not disposed to stand upon much ceremony. Mr. Melville's latest b.oo k, we are pleased to say, fell almost still born from the press. . . .”53 Melville himself had reviewed his 1851

32 it is interesting to note that Melville said in 1851 that Cooper's books "are among the earliest I remember, as in my boyhood producing a vivid, and awakening power upon my mind." See Letters, p. 145.

33 Hershel Parker, ed. The Recognition of Herman Mel­ ville: Selected Criticism Since 1846 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967), p. 48. 24

volume as "a wicked book" and could expect the society of

Evert and George Duyckinck to pass no more favorable judg­

ment than that.

By the middle of April, 1852, the first copies of Mel­

ville’s ’’rural bowl of milk" were being bound at the Har­

per’s company. ’’Harpers advertised Pierre in some New York

City papers and gave away one hundred and fifty review

copies, twenty-five more than usual, but only two dozen

notices have been found, some of them fiercely antagonistic.

Judging only by financial standards, Pierre was a disaster

for Melville. Of the 2,310 copies printed, the Harper’s

distribution system and Melville's name carried off 1,423 by March 21, 1853--a figure which includes whatever sets of the American sheets Sampson Low bought for sale in England.

. . . thirty-/four/ years later Melville's last Harper account recorded seventy-nine copies still on hand. ...”

It is conceivable that the book's doom was predetermined by the close knit members of the New York literati.

"Pierre had no chance to be thoughtfully and impartially reviewed in the United States, for lurid rumors about it swept through the New York Publishing clique,

34 NNE, pp. 379-80. 25

probably even before review copies were distributed.”33

The reviewers’ pace was a furious one during those

early sacrificial summer days of 1852.36 Riegel indicates

"that Melville was attacked by his contemporaries . . .

for the failure of his later work as literature. . . ."37

but many reviews attacked his work from moral, religious,

and other social points of view that have no value as life

rary criticism. Perry Miller concurs:

into what a cunningly contrived trap Pierre was to enter appears from a treatise in the Knicker­ bocker for April, 1852, on that subject which, one would suppose, everyone had heard more than enough: --the distinction between genius and talent. Genius, ... is creative; talent is executive. "Genius revels in the ideal and the possible; talent delves in the real and the actual." Genius derives its strength from the heart rather than the head, is 'prone to be warm, tender, profuse, spontaneous, gushing, full of sympathy, and careless of itself

NNE, p. 380.

36 For well done discussions of Pierre's reviews see Melville's Reviewers: British and American, 1846-1891 by H. W. Hetherington; also "The Anatomy of Melville's Fame" by 0. W, Riegel; and The Recognition of Herman Melville; and "Historical Note," pp. 380-407 by Leon Howard and Hershel Parker in NNE.

37 0. W. Riegel, "The Anatomy of Melville's Fame',' American Literature, III, (1931), 195. 26

and the marrow. »i 38

It was an almost predictable vein of objections that Pierre, a work of the head as well as the heart, would receive from the romantically sympathetic critics. On July 29, 1852, the New York Herald reviewer, obviously basing his comments on hearsay, set what would become the standard reaction to

In fiction, Herman Melville has a new book, Pierre or the Ambiguities, in which it is understood that he has dressed up and exhibited in Berkshire, where he is living, some of the ancient and most repul­ sive inventions of the George Walker and Anne Rad­ cliffe sort—desperate passion at first sight, for a young woman who turns out to be the hero’s sister, etc., etc., etc., It is conceded that Mr. Melville has written himself out.3^

Much of what followed was merely clarification and expansion of the same. Melville was seen through his assumed persona,

Pierre, to be going mad. One of the earlier pieces, seen in the New York Day. Book of September 7, 1852, read (with this headline):

HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY ----- _ We were somewhat startled aX the remark /someone had claimed Melville feebly/; but still more at

38 The Raven and the Whale: The War of Words and Wits in the Era of Poe and Melville (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1956), p. 304.

39 NNE, p. 380. 27

learning a few days later, that Melville was really supposed to be deranged, and that his friends were taking measures to place him under treatment. We hope one of the earliest precautions will be to keep him stringently secluded from pen and ink.4^

The critics scoldingly charged that the ideas were at best primitive and were with certainty anti-Christian. Evert

Duyckinck in his review in the New York Literary World,

August 21, 1852, said:

If it has any meaning at all, /it/simply means that virtue and religion are only for gods and not to be attempted by man. But ordinary novel readers will never unkennel this loathsome suggestion. The stagnant pool at the bottom of which it lies, is not too deep for their penetration, but too muddy, foul, and corrupt. If truth is hid in a well, false­ hood lies in a quagmire,41

This type of insinuation marked Melville’s career from

Pierre to the end. "In 1854 a story of his was refused by an editor who feared ’offending the religious sensibilities of the Public and the Congregation of Grace Chruch.’"4^

The general reaction of American and British critics as well as their readers suggested Melville’s romance had taken the course of the novels of Europe, especially the

40 NNE, pp. 380-81.

41 Parker, p. 353.

42 Cowie, p. 390. 28

German and French, and was not fit for civilized consumption.

Miller reports that Pierre was called: "a repulsive, unnatu­

ral and indecent plot, a style disfigured by every paltry

affectation of the worst German school, and ideas perfectly unparalleled for earnest absurdity."4''5 In the only English

review known, from the London Athenaeum, November 20, 1852,

Henry F. Chorley bombasts Pierre for its loose imitation of

the European school: "German literature with its depths and shallows is too keenly appreciated in this country for readers

to endure Germanism at second hand. We take up novels to be amused--not bewildered. . . ."44 Melville was also accused of having lost touch with reality (usually equated with his yarns of the South Seas) and this loss was reflected in his hack literary style. John R. Thompson in the Southern

Literary Messenger in September, 1852, said:

few books ever rose so rapidly and deservedly into popular favor as Typee. . . . But from the time that Typee came from Mr. Melville’s portfolio, he seems to have been writing under an unlucky star. . . .Mr. Melville’s theory is wrong. It should be the object of fiction to delineate life and character either as it is around us, or as it

43 Miller, "Melville and Transcendentalism," p. 564.

44 Parker, p. 60. 29

ought to be. Now, Pierre never did exist, and it is very certain that he never ought to exist. . . . But badly as we think of the book as a work of art, we think infinitely worse of it as to its moral tendency.45

The theme was broadly attacked, vs usually from a moral rather than an aesthetic standpoint. Duyckinck's long article in the Literary World based its entire argument on the question of the book’s morality. Others were less pro­ lific in the space devoted, nevertheless the curt smugness as in Green’s Boston Post review, achieved the same result:

"What the book means, we know not."

Since critics generally accepted the book, as Duyckinck did, "as an eccentricity of the imagination," they perceived that Melville had corrupted the romance as a form through his employment of unsaved, raving heroes, vanquished heroines, and virtues which were so buried in the depths of symbolism that no common, democratic reader could bear reading but a few pages. In fact, the Boston Post concluded that "we believe we shall never see the man who has endured the reading of the whole of it." The Boston Daily Evening

Traveller, on August 17 added that

his work is even more unnatural and improbable than either of his previous productions, whilst

45 Parker, pp. 56-59. 30

the interest is extremely disagreeable and tragical in character. The plot is complex and involved, but on the whole skillfully managed. The characters, though exceedingly unnatural and bearing but little resemblance to living realities, are held in firm grasp ... we think it will add little if anything to Mr. Melville’s previous reputation.4^

There were, to be sure, some favorable reviews. How­ ever, they were sparce in number and weak in their general influence on the reading public. The few reviews that were positive in their judgments were, ironically enough, very forceful in tone and bold in their defense of either Mel­ ville, Pierre, or both. For instance, those appearing in the Boston Daily Advertiser and the Albany Argus made refer­ ence to Melville's genius; Graham’s Magazine recognized his depth of psychological perception; and Godley’s Lady * s Book praised him for satirizing the pretensions of the ’’modern literati.A nine-page article appeared in Putnam’s

Monthly in February, 1853 by Fritz-James O’Brien entitled

”0ur Young Authors” which devoted a large section to Mel­ ville. The author’s praise for Melville was high, but he stopped short of Pierre.

What distinguished O’Brien's comments on Pierre

46 Hugh.W. Hetherington, Melville’s Reviewers, British and American, 1846-1891 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), p. 230.

47 Hetherington, pp. 229-235. 31

was his awareness of its significance in relation to the whole of Melville's early literary career. He was the first to treat Pierre not as an isolated aberration from the similarities of Typee and Omoo but as the culmination of the tendency toward sty­ listic and philosophic extravagances.4®

O'Brien's article traced in Melville's work, including

Pierre, the growing literary tendencies in his canon.

Although not favorable in his findings, O'Brien did find relationships.

Typee, . . . was healthy; Omoo nearly so; after that came Mardi, with its excusable wildness; then came Moby-Dick, and Pierre with its inexcusable insanity. . . . Pierre has all the madness of Mardi, without its vague, dreamy, poetic charm. All Mr. Melville's many affectations of style and thought are here crowded together in a mad mosaic. . . . Pierre transcends all the nonsense-writing that the world ever beheld.49

The contemporary consensus, as Hetherington has put it, was that Pierre "was morally vicious, stylistically monstrous, incomprehensibly transcendental, and violently mad/'^O

Professor Leyda, indicating that it was a consensus and not a unanimous opinion, has recorded that Melville received a letter from a J. W. Barrs dated January 13, 1890 that

48 NNE, p. 393.

49 Parker, pp. 67-68.

30 Hetherington, p. 238. 32

apologized for a recent article (a copy of which he enclosed) appearing in The Scottish Art Review by H. S. Salt of Novem­ ber, 1889, which had alluded to his later works as "phan­ tasies." He wrote, "Pierre I have always liked & don’t think

Salt does it anything like justice & Israel Potter ought not to have been passed over, although Salt may not have read it."51 In a series of memorial articles appearing just weeks after Melville’s death, J.E.A. Smith, an old friend of

Melville’s, discussed in great length the autobiographical significances he had discerned in Pierre. He disputed the common notion, which had earlier been sponsored by the

Duyckincks and the Boston Post, that Melville had burned himself out in Pierre and that is why he did not write a full length work again until 1857. The series which appeared in The Pittsfield Evening Journal gives, as Howard and Parker have said, "a disproportionate amount of attention to

Pierre"and, coupled with some of Smith’s other conclu­ sions, seems to be among the first to offer new and lucid conclusions that do not bear the prejudices of the

31 Jay Leyda, The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville, 2 vols (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951). P.

52 NNE, p. 395. 33

early 1850's.

Modern critical reactions are generally much more

sophisticated and complete in their estimation of Pierre

as a work of art, or Pierre and its place in and relation

to other works in the Melville canon; complete and percep­

tive readings of the book are beginning to surface in the

work of a few scholars. However, too many follow the ten­

dency of Smith's 1891 memorial to read Pierre as autobio­

graphy, thus losing sight of the work as art. We need to

learn restriction: the text must become the chief source

of information used for judgment; all else is speculative,

secondary, and external. During the brief Melville revival

of the 1950's, Marius Bewley cited some of his predecessors

as well as colleagues for shortsightedness. He diagnosed that because they were "not content with considering /Mel­ ville's/ novels as works of art, the impassioned exegate ha/d/ tended to substitute intellectual abstractions and rationalizations for the books themselves."J With the abundance of abstraction present in Pierre, for instance,

53 Bewley, "A Truce of God," p. 682. 34

this tendency is somewhat understandable and forgivable.

On the other, hand, the wealth of reading needed to merely

understand concepts not yet fathomed, let alone the reread­

ing to correct the faulty work completed, should seem a

rich enough possibility for critics that they could persuade

themselves to focus on the text. Mary Dichmann rightly cau­

tions modern critics to reassess their attitudes in reminding us that "of all Melville's novels, the one that has proved most challenging to the critics, and which has been handled least satisfactorily by them, is Pierre. . . ."^4 Even

Mumford recognized the latent value of Pierre and benevolently concluded that "one cannot dismiss the novel /he didn't recog­ nize that it was a romance/ high-handedly as Melville’s contemporaries did. . .

A more standard line of modern critical logic is based upon discovering Melville's emotional stature and how it therefore affected his art. This angle of vision presents an aesthetic impass. Is the art separate from the man or

54 Mary E. Dichmann, "Absolutism in Melville's Pierre," PMLA, LXVII (September, 1952), 702.

55 Mumford, p. 134. 35

are they one? Nevertheless, in judging a literary work it

is the words on the page as well as all they imply that is

the testament and, therefore, the thing being judged. It

might have bearing on why the art turned out thusly to study

the mind or the society, but it has little to do with the

art itself. If we are interested in Pierre, then all else

is beyond it. Mumford offers an example of the art being

lost in the biography:

Melville was worked up, in the writing of Moby-Dick, to the highest pitch of effort; and he was harried, no doubt, by his ever present necessity to keep his public and add to his income. The spiritual momen­ tum remained, but the force behind it dwindled away. With no time for recuperation, he plunged into his new work: an unwise decision. Melville was not without his weaknesses, and they rose to the surface in his new book, Pierre.33

Such biographical and psychological speculation leads to wholesale psychoanalytic investigation which usually leaves

the art form in the dust. Alan Lebowitz, for instance, says,

Until Pierre, Melville's fiction had consistently mirrored his perceptions about the world; Pierre seems to reflect a last perception that the world no longer offered meaningful subjects for his fictions and that the act of writing was itself a fruitless act, as deeply unsatisfying as it was unremunerative.3? (Italics mine) 33 Mumford, p. 134.

3Alan Lebowitz, Progress into Silence: A Study of Melville's Heroes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970) p. 152. 36

The pattern is plain enough: it moves from biography to

aesthetic assumption and back to proving biography without

commenting substantially on what all this has to do with

the resulting book.

The least disruptive but, nevertheless weak, modern

critical tactic is to discount Melville's ability to use

form, style, and structure ironically in Pierre. In a

rather stunning book, Martin Pops "errs" by not considering

carefully these possibilities and therefore prematurely

concludes that "Pierre is so badly flawed that one cannot

but wonder how Melville could have plummeted so disas-

co trously."’’0 To recognize the genius in other of Melville's

books, from Typee to Moby-Dick, in regard to devices and

techniques and then to assert, as R.W.B. Lewis does, that

"Melville faltered and went back once more over the old dreary ground of disillusion" is somewhat disconcerting.39 This view negates the obvious growth and movement away from the

early, incomplete metaphysics and surface symbolism of Mardi

38 Martin Leonard Pops, The Melville Archetype (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1970), p. 88.

39 The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), p. 146. 37

Moby-Dick to the irony, figurative language, and sophis­

ticated themes of The Confidence-Man and Billy Budd. The

point here is not to make Melville out to be America's

greatest literary technician, but to admit that "the poor

man could write an imaginative book." Flawlessness was

never Melville's concern, but he was aware of convention

and in command of a variety of modes. Clearly, the possi­

bility of his varying styles to achieve allegory or irony

exists. With this in mind one can see that the following

comment by Arvin is, at best shortsighted:

Pierre itself, taken as a whole and considered on strictly literary grounds, is one of the most painfully ill-conditioned books ever to be produced by a first-rate mind. So extreme is its badness as an integral work of art that some faint-hearted readers J_a. silly ressurrection_of the tone of Mel­ ville's contemporary reviewer^/ might well wish^go be excused from any prolonged discussion of it.

The most illuminating of the recent criticism to

appear is that which takes a firm hold of the material of

Pierre. Although many critics have reserved their final estimations of the romance because of its past history and

the many looming unresolved questions, not the least of which is style, many have risked coming to Melville's rescue

60 Newton Arvin, Herman Melville (New York: William Sloane, 1950, Reprinted New York: Compass Books, 1957), p. 219. 38

within the past few years. Skeptical, but not unwilling to

listen, Richard Chase is emblematic of the best of the

Melvillian critics in saying,

Surely, we have no right to explain away Melville’s book as a muddle or as morally out of date. Pierre is not merely a curiosity, a nineteenth century Hamlet vitiated by romantic Gothicism and obscure philosophizing. . . . 3^

One of the first critics to instigate this work, by looking at and listening more closely to the text instead of the man, was Alexander Cowie who declared in 1948 that "although there are melodramatic morasses ... in Pierre, there are also peaks of magnificent prose which, when they echo any writer, show how closely Melville read Shakespeare and

Dante."32 Matthiessen*s pioneering work in nineteenth cen­ tury American literature was far more brazen than one might today expect while putting forth such radicalism in 1941 as:

"if Pierre is a failure, it must be accounted a great one, a failure in an effort to express as honestly as possible what it meant to undergo the test of a real impassioned onset of Life and Passion.” J

61 Chase, p. 140.

32 Cowie, p. 390.

33 Matthiessen, p. 487. 39

Pierre was suddenly taking on new stature and possi­ bilities. For all of Lewis Mumford’s inconsistencies, his biography of Melville rose to the occasion as early as

1929 to say that "the supreme quality of Pierre is its candor."64 This is certainly a perceptive comment coming from a time that was still immersed in the mythology of the

1852 reviewers. The courage of Mumford's position is magni­ fied by F. J. Mather's reporting in the Saturday Review of

Literature in April of that same year that he had refused to write Melville's biography because "he was a hopelessly poor ft s risk." Nevertheless, Pierre was taking on new signifi­ cance. We can especially appreciate Mumford's insight by recognizing that many of the latest reviewers of Pierre exercise caution. James Kissane, after an excellent expli­ cation, called Pierre "a lumbering, grotesque, but powerful novel. . . ."66 And in another recent mention, Lebowitz ambiguously features Pierre: "in many ways the most complex

84 Mumford, p. 145.

65 Saturday Review of Literature (27 April, 1929), V, 945.

66 "imagery, Myth, and Melville's Pierre," American Literature, XXVI (1955), 572. 40

of Melville’s novels and surely the most difficult to judge,

/rt/is at once an end and a beginning."67

The most enlightened comments in recent years have come from some of the most astute authorities on Melville—which in itself seems to indicate something. The general nature of these contributions to the scholarship is one of urging- on and is given in a tone of exuberance and interest. The notion seems to be that maybe we have reached a point at which we can understand the book’s implications (social, philosophical, psychological, cultural, etc.) without becoming offended. Also, we have gained that needed aesthe­ tic perspective that only the distance of time can afford.

Although a bit over-zealous in some of his assertions, E. L.

Grant Watson, in 1930 gave the first real indications that a whole area of Melville’s genius still needed to be explored when he wrote,

Pierre, is a rare, and a lovely creation. It is no book for idle readers. To understand it is an ordeal; and appreciating its strange, spiritual beauty, we should be purged of valuations. . . .

He later concluded his article by saying, "By those who are now able to obtain copies and who take the trouble to under­ stand the inner symbolic meaning, it will be found to be the

67 Lebowitz, p. 152. 41

greatest of Melville’s books."33 Remarking about H. M. Tom­

linson's preface which appeared in the 1929 E. P. Dutton edition of Pierre, Alexander Cowie said,

it seems likely that more and more critics in the future will agree with H. M. Tomlinson in finding the book full enough of brilliance and depth to compensate for its melodramatic action and passages of overwrought prose.3^

The well-respected Perry Miller in The Raven and the Whale lent the tone of "specialty" to those who can rise high enough above the rabble to come to grips with Pierre. He said, "For those who can read it, Pierre is a fascinating book."70 In what is probably the best scholarly edition of

Pierre (NNE), Leon Howard and Hershel Parker have so repre­ sented the possibilities for Pierre: "Whatever he may have planned, he managed to make of Pierre a book which, in its understanding of human nature, was more profound than he had yet written."71

33 "Melville's Pierre," New England Quarterly, III (1930), 216 and 232.

39 Cowie, p. 390.

?0 Miller, Raven and Whale, p. 305.

71 NNE, p. 378. CHAPTER TWO:

SECULAR HUMANISM VS. SUBJECTIVE TRUTH: TWO CHRISTIAN ALTERNATIVES IN PIERRE

With the obvious attraction that Pierre offers for the psychoanalytical, biographical, and mythopoeic critics, few complete studies of the romance itself have been made.

Although most critics have made mention of the ethical sys­ tems at work in the romance, there are few discussions that probe the ethics of the book satisfactorily. Usually people who deal with the moral problems of the book identify with the notion that Melville's books were clearly anti-Christian.

The now famous assertion that Melville had carried on a run­ ning "quarrel with God" has done little to promote lucid readings of the ethical issues in Melville's works.

It is not the specific purpose of this study to discuss

Melville's religious thought.72 it is more germaine here to restrict ourselves to the text, since this study's major work is to dispute common, but shortsighted conclusions.

The following discussion outlines the contentions on which this study is based. Later chapters will provide textual

72 William Braswell's Melville's Religious Thought is still the only full-length study. Perry Miller makes sense of Melville's thought in The Raven and the Whale. 43

substance for the theoretical assertions made here. Through­

out this study, however, it should be remembered that we are

primarily interested in discovering what the ethical circum- 73 stances of the book are in relation to Christian theology.

It is probable that Pierre is only externally anti-

Christian. It is also possible that Melville was writing

a romance only on the surface. And, indeed, one element is

parodistic anti-romance. His book carries themes and motifs

which were not characteristic of romances through a conscious

manipulation of symbol, image, ircny, and allegory. Pierre

is indeed a book of surface ambiguities. It presents the

world as it seems. However, its strength and value as a

work of art lie deeper than its physical and historical

seeming. Pierre’s ethical themes are ice-berg-like in their

deception. Unless one stops to peer through the murk into

the lower depths and perceive how far the book extends--

refusing to accept only that which he sees--will he be

able to chart a true course through Pierre. With Melville’s growing metaphysical concentration during the early

years of the '5O’s--which all the biographers faith-

73 Raymond Weaver's Mariner and Mystic is excellent, although somewhat dated, for Melville’s religious training. See also Eleanor Melville Metcalf’s Herman Melville: Cycle and Epicycle. 44

fully attest to--it seems unreasonable to conclude that Mel­

ville had done nothing new or valuable in Pierre. He had

come to recognize that "all fame is patronage”74 through the

unappreciative reviews of Moby-Dick, although he was not

ready to accept his annihilation. He chose to mask the

ethical themes with the appeal of gothic mysteriousness

directed toward surface realities that would readily be

apprehended. He featured the struggle of youth in the midst

of worldliness (always a favorite theme with readers of his

time); and exhibited nature in all of her radiant glory while she waited in the wings to rescue the hero. But

Melville’s subterrainian story was being told in juxtaposi­ tion to the romance, and would demonstrate the irony of

Man’s World--but especially the American man's world-- through allegory. With Pierre the romantic mode became satirical.

It is for these reasons that the meanings of Pierre have been elusive and difficult to understand. These same reasons, along with the sociocultural factors which influ­ enced the early reviewers and critics, have caused Pierre 74 Meade Minnigerode, Some Personal Letters of Herman Melville and a Bibliography. (New York: Brick Row Book Shop, 1922) p. 170. 45

to be widely misinterpreted and misjudged.

In terms of artistic movement, Pierre is charged by the

tension of paralleled Puritan and Romantic tendencies.

Richard Chase brushes by this notion when he says,

It is certainly clear from what happens in Pierre that Melville saw no salvation in Conventional Society. Salvation must come either from religion or from the secular intelligentia, or from a com­ bination of both.75

All of the book’s many themes revolve around the central

issue of ethics. All action and development occur because

of the underlying ethical dispute. Pierre is a book in which the story of ethics is told and defined. It is a story that is heroless because none of the characters com­ prehend the True meaning of the ethical and act faithfully upon it.

The world of Pierre is strangely eclectic. The Age of Reason had left its mark, with its deistic god and its calculated heaven and eighteenth-century rationalism. The democratic love for freedom abounds there, yet Pierre's

"home" is steeped in traditional feudalism and monarchy.

All of the typical Christian slogans surround the populace.

Social and moral apathy, given the philosophically sounding

75 Chase, p. 135. 46

term of "virtuous expediency" is paraded by the . _

intelligent sia of bohemia as the new morality that will save

the world. Although not vigorously supported by others in

the world of Pierre, it is laughingly tolerated. Pierre

puts on exhibition

the predominant tendency among Enlightenment as well as Storm and Stress thinkers to identify the divine with the familiar, the absence of a sense of the "wholly other," the uniformity of nature-- these are some factors precluding the possibility of God’s breaking through his own laws.7°

The book seems to attest to the fact, from this point of view, that "Hawthorne and Melville were not satisfied with the prevailing Romanticism of their century in America, which inflated the individual and produced an extravagant indivi­ dualism. "77 Melville’s own Unitarian-Calvinist background shows, if not a sympathy, at least an understanding of both.

His personal attitudes were clear enough.

Whether there really lurked in Hawthorne, ’perhaps unknown to himself, a touch of Puritanic gloom, '

76 Geoffrey Clive, "’The Teleological Suspension of the Ethical’ In Nineteenth-Century Literature," The Journal of Religion, XXXIV (April, 1954), 75.

77 Randall Stewart, "The Vision of Evil in Hawthorne and Melville," in Nathan A. Scott Jr., ed. The Tragic Vision and the Christian Faith (New York: Association Press, 1957), p. 262. 47

Melville could not altogether tell. But he was certain, in diameterical contrast with Emerson, that "this great power of blackness in him derives its force from its appeals to that Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin, from whose visitations, in some shape or other, no deeply thinking mind is always and wholly free.. °

Some critics have come close to explaining the ethical

entanglements of Pierre by looking into the political por­

trait of America that is painted there. One critic has said,

perhaps the great leveling democracy of America has leveled even the American concept of the deity. Melville suggests that Pierre's pride may be pecu­ liarly American when he states that American ’poli­ tical institutions' . . . seem to possess the divine _ virtue of a natural law /Pierre, p. . But /America/ regards itself as a holy land, far less significant things are also divine.79

Directed to Moby-Dick but equally applicable to Pierre,

Bowen and VanDerBeets have capsuled Frederic I. Carpenter's

view that

although he believed in the democratic ideal, Mel­ ville nevertheless felt it was doomed to failure. In prophesying the failure of the democratic ideal, which attempts politically to achieve the Chris­ tian goal of the brotherhood of man, Melville rejec­ ted the tenets of Protestant Christianity,--a major source of American idealism, and placed himself

73 Matthiessen, p. 190.

79 Floyd C. Watkins, "Melville's Plotinus Plinlimmon and Pierre," Realty and Myth, ed. by William E. Walker and Robert L. Welker (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt Uni­ versity Press, 1964), p. 44. 48

on the side of traditional orthodox Christianity, which denies the hope of realizing the Christian ideal in this world. ... In all the Melville novels there is implied a criticism of the demo­ cratic ideal. 0

Certainly the social implications of the ethical cannot be separated from the theological, yet the consideration of the social before the theological is missing the most essen­ tial point of the book. Pierre, as will be demonstrated shortly, considers the moral question of "the acknowledge­ ment of man’s dual nature, /that is/, between heaven and hell. . . ."81 It therefore follows that whatever level of theological understanding man arrives at that is the system of ethics that his government and other institutions will reflect.

Melville's romance has characters which represent all phases of this understanding: from Atheism to Calvinism.

Specifically, "Pierre undergoes a paradoxical conversion from idealist to nihilist."oz Pierre serves as a movable

80 a Critical Guide to Herman Melville, ed. James K. Bowen and Richard VanDerBeets (Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1971), p. 4.

81 Clive, p. 78.

82 John D. Seelye, Melville: The Ironic Diagram (Evan­ ston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), p. 74. 49

point on the ethical continuum that is constantly changing

positions due to influences around him and worldly circum­

stances. "Pierre completely reverses himself as he proceeds

from a belief that all is divine to a hatred of all that QD suggests the divine."00 It is the confusion in Pierre’s

ethical philosophy which leads to all the ambiguities.

"The driven confusions of Pierre’s thought actually seem a

better mirror of our eighteen forties and fifties than would /other more well respected documents/."^ Pierre, therefore,

is the catalyst of ethical action and must be watched closely

in order to discern the choices available to him; the action he takes and why. The "why" seems to be what the book is

all about.

Pierre’s society offers him five distinct ethical choices: Christianity; Protestant Christianity; Virtuous

Expediency; Kantian Idealism; or Atheism. The first of the five alternatives derives from the ethics of the earliest of

Christian believers. To be sure, S. F. Damon's belief that

"real Christianity belongs in heaven and not on earth"85

33 Watkins, p. 48.

Matthiessen, p. 467.

65 Damon, p. 118. 50

is inconsistent with this notion. Damon seems to suggest

that Christianity is synonymous with perfection whereas the

converse is the essential doctrine.

Christianity

Christianity presumes man is a sinful and sin-prone

being. It accepts the fact that the demon is strong and that

fall is necessary in asserting "the equivocalness of being

human!Christianity subscribes to the divine example of

Christ for its guide because there is no other so flawless

and assuredly divine. It is the essence of being Christian

to love God so deeply that one so finite and flawed is willing

to follow His word even if worldly set-backs occur due to his

doctrine. The key is grace through forgiveness and faith.

Although one may sacrifice all for an unseeable "Cause," he will gain in grace, God's favor, and his eventual end will be

eternal immortality of the soul. How can a Christian be cer­

tain all he believes is Truth, especially that Christ is God

and that his reward will be forthcoming? Randall Stewart has answered quite aptly: "Man is a wayward creature, but his state, unless by his own perverse willfulness, is never beyond the reach of God's redeeming grace. This is the

86 Clive, p. 78. 51

87 essence of the Christian hope." It is the capacity to believe in the possibility of the impossible that the

Christian calls "faith" and makes the cornerstone of his doctrine. Without that element, the metaphysics of Chris­ tianity are inexplicable.

Protestant Christian Ethic

Another choice is the religion which blends the social law with the idea of a benevolent, even at times a somewhat disinterested, God. This alternative is imbedded in the

Protestant Christian ethic. It rubs down the edges of its social gospel in order to elevate man’s position in the

Universe to one which allows him to bargain with God. Cer­ tainly the covenant theology which is at the foundation of the American brand of Protestantism attests to this. Here

God can offer the grace of Heaven to a man and be refused consciously. For the early Christian, the gift of grace was the highest of glories, yet it was poured into one’s soul without the ability of consent or rejection. Protes­ tant Christianity thinks of itself as having risen above the sins of pride and blasphemy in this regard because of its greater understanding of God through the specific cog­ nition of the Universe through science and intellectual

87 Stewart, p. 262. 52

progress. In this system man prays to his greatest '’friend”

directly. The line of communication is open--especially

to those who have distinguished themselves as great Utili­

tarians. Although salvation is still a matter of conscience,

it is here dependent too on what one has done to make his

life prosperous and useful. The highest realms of heaven

are to be understandably reserved for the successful. The rationale is that the more a man works, the more he pros­ pers as an individual, and in turn, the more he can give to his posterity, the greater his mark will be on the race of man in his journey up the evolutionary ladder. This, there­ fore, glorifies God in demonstrating that his highest mortal creation has indeed developed the potentialities given him.

The Protestant Christian also relies on faith, but it is a much more terrestially-controlled faith: faith in man.

Faith in God is largely dependent upon man’s faith in him­ self. If man keeps his part of the bargain, then God must be held in good faith to keep His.

Virtuous Expediency

Virtuous Expediency, another alternative, assumes a coldly rational attitude toward man’s ethical position in

God’s universe. The concept of God is doubtlessly deistic.

The separation of Man’s world (which was a gift from God) from God’s Kingdom is the essential point in this ethical 53

system. Man owes God nothing other than to live within the social law that is humanly conceived and ordained. Man need not strive for eternal goals by his actions on earth, because no benevolent God using infinite law as his measure could damn eternally a being that is finite. Man is an earth-bound being who can assume right what occurs rational and reasonable to him. The Expediant follows his human, social conscience to insure righteous living, but is cognizant that his human condition is frailty (when compared to a Supreme Being) and small offenses are justifiable and expected. Goodness is relative and its imperfect nature is understood, yet one is expected to nurture himself on avoidance (but should never expect to be constantly successful). .The rationale for Vir­ tuous Expediency is that man is to live and set his objectives by human standards, therefore eradicating undue anxiety at trying to achieve what only an infinite being is capable of achieving. Faith is reduced here to the belief in the possi­ bility of probability and in the observable, tangible, pre­ dictable, calculatable things of earth. Using a traditional scale, Virtuous Expediency, would be amoral.

Idealism

Kantian Idealism does not necessarily indicate trans­ cendentalism, but in the sense herein pertaining to it, 54

transcendental notions shall be component and complementary

to it. Essentially the doctrines being associated here are

derivative of Immanuel Kant's treatise, "Religion within the

Bounds of Reason." Primarily, Pierre's choice here resides

in his recognition that all things and beings are a cor­ porate, monistic Whole. This Oneness therefore abides in

essential and unalterable Truths which are necessarily com­ mon to all parts of this mystical body. There are no moral or ethical agents that some parts of the Whole are held answerable to. Any man is no less than any other man or anything else. There is an innate vested moral conscience in all things which equates all parts and provides the basic unifying unit in all things.

As a moralist Kant makes no allowances for any distinctive expression of individuality. . . . Extraordinary moral action, therefore, he would rule out on two principal grounds: first because virtue is not merely universal, but absolute in the sense of divine; second, because every deviation from this supreme principle is gratuitous by defi­ nition.33

The innate goodness which is necessary in this system negates evil. Only Man is capable of sinning because of

Free Will. A sin against a part is a sin against the Whole as well, and the converse is necessarily true. A sin occurs when a part becomes unconscious of the Truth of Intuition. 88 Clive, p. 76. 55

When one acts solely upon the heart, Intuition, or "whim",

as Emerson has put it, he is acting in accordance with the

Whole. Dependence upon the rational mode is unreliable and

in the strictest sense of the Kantian system an offense

against the Whole.

Atheism

The final alternative that is open to Pierre is Atheism.

Here there is no demanding God who is "self-existent and self- conscious." Material objects may come to usurp the tradi­ tional notion of a God, but philosophically Man is the cen­ tral being in the Universe. Fate, destiny, and progress are all dependent upon his rational processes.

These five distinct choices initiate all of the ambi­ guities that appear in Pierre. The Hamlet-like quandary occurs because of the rapidity of the changes in the choices.

They appear as alternating flashes of different colored lights which are barely perceivable. The situation intensifies when montages of light appear concurrently and when multiple cir­ cumstances arise that call for immediate discrimination and choice. It is not only Pierre's native inability to cope with these situations that destroys him. It is also the complex, impersonal, and selfish world that presents him with the manifold possibilities to error that ultimately brings 56

him down. One has to wonder about a society that calls for so many ethical decisions within such a short period of time from one person. In Pierre we see that modern

society is . . . based on . . . the obliteration of all distinctions, for New York is a "vulgar caldron," the last refuge of the dispossessed. And Pierre, allegorically the Earth in Richard Chase’s exegesis, who was once at the center of his universe is now, in New York, just another orbiting planet. New York is harsh and ugly, a stone city, ultimately ruinous to mind, body, and spirit. And vet it is the Real World, the only world. . . .89

Melville’s pyrrhonism is probably responsible for the hopelessness in Pierre. Certainly this would help satirize reliance upon man’s ability to know all and would serve to show that objective knowledge is impossible to attain.

Further, this brand of skepticism would emphasize the value and need of theological faith. If this is the case, it seems that Melville’s disgust with nineteenth-century

Christianity is well taken.

Perhaps the first truth about us in this respect is that we are the embarrassed receivers of . . . a civilization which used to be Christian. We res­ pect, we are in a civil way habituated to, the posi­ tions of Christian belief; but the norms of our experience no longer reinforce them.90

89 Pops, p. 116.

90 Berthoff, p. 188. 57

It now seems that all the "Hegelian adjustments" to account

for a certain "historical epoch's" standards of behavior

are nothing but vicious rationalizations. Clearly the soci

ety of Pierre is "the one civilization which thoroughly

disregards the precepts of Christian morality /and yet/

ii 91 is that of the Western world, which professes it.

Although Pierre is a romance, in form, the realism that

exists within is essentially concerned, again, with the

ethical.

There is realism of materials in what he shows of the American environment in the 1830's and 1840's, with its social and literary pretentiousness, its spiritual refinement and eccentricity, the decline of the older aristocratic traditions and the coarse boisterousness of its new immigrant populations.92

What one must come to realize about Pierre is that its

external action does little in regard to defining the book.

It works in shadows in order to emphasize what only some

readers have come to notice: all the fools, hypocrites,

and characters suffering from apathy survive; all others who have sought Truth have failed to have faith and hope.

No character survives who is Christian in the truest sense

91 Mumford, p. 148.

92 William Ellery Sedgwick, Herman Melville: The Tra­ gedy of Mind.(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1944), p. 139. 58

of the term.

It is the shallow Christian viewpoint represented by Mrs. Glendinning and Rev. Falsgrave in their handling of Delly Ulver. This viewpoint, though it may call itself Christian is a diluted form of Christianity which waters down the teachings of Christ until they can be made to coincide with the •practical and expedient demands of everyday living; in fact, to coincide with selfishness. Melville satirizes this shallow viewpoint, throughout.93

Therefore, we have functioning in Pierre a gamut of ethical precepts which divide themselves essentially, however, into two distinct catagories: Secular Humanism and Subjective Truth. All, excepting Christianity, fit precisely into the former category because of their reliance to one degree or another on having faith in man and his world. Christianity stands alone to represent the latter.

It relies on faith in a power which is separate from man which is nonintelligible and imperceptlble.lt relies on the principle that

given a world in which God is ’’wholly other,” where the real is not necessarily the rational, there does not appear any obvious way of telling whether someone or something is living proof of the infinite.

And, therefore, one must have faith in the word and example

93 Lawrance Thompson, Melville's Quarrel with God (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), p. 273.

94 Clive, p. 79. 59

of the one Supreme Being that has appeared to man in his world. To rely on reason, as has been shown, is faulty, and the same holds true for the intuition. It is too apt, because it is sensually motivated and emotionally activated, to misinterpret while in such a state of frenzy.

Christianity stands alone in Pierre as having been the one single ethical system that Pierre did not fully understand. He accepts the secularized Protestant Chris­ tianity in its most corrupt state as representative of the system of Christ's ethics. He had been isolated from con­ cepts of man's finiteness and was mistakenly nurtured on the assurance that a man could achieve anything that he so chose. Pierre represents the archetypal man of the middle

1800's in America.

Bryant, the Hudson River painters, Cooper, and a myriad of romances had persuaded the American public that natural impulses translate themselves into the innate piety and chivalry of Natty Bumpo. . . .95

And, this is essentially what happened to Pierre. He was so saturated with the prelapsarian state of Saddle-Meadows that he presumed that to be good was easy and natural. "To believe too much in the beauty of mortality is to deny the

95 Miller, "Melville and Transcendentalism," p. 567. 60

superior beauties of the immortal."^3 When he falls he

accuses "Christianity" for failing him, totally unaware

that he never really experienced it. When he questions his

mother and Falsgrave concerning Delly’s fate, and recog­

nizes inconsistency between their responses and the Biblical

directive, he is then the closest to reaching an understan­

ding of Christianity. What he has actually recognized is

the irreconcilable difference between the secular humanism

of Protestant Christianity and Christianity. Assuming that

Christianity must be a hopelessly corrupt system he even­

tually condemns it. "Theologically speaking the unforgivable

sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost, is that of denying

God."97 The irony lies in the fact that the reader realizes

that Pierre and his proud society never rely on subjective

Truth or practice Christianity while the members of Pierre's society consider themselves undoubtedly Christian. "A humanly insufficient faith and a humanly mistaken philosophy have led Pierre to a realm in which the last thing is the opposition of his heart to brazen fact."^3 Pierre's ethical

93 Watkins, p. 45.

97 George C. Homans, "The Dark Angel: The Tragedy of Herman Melville," New England Quarterly, V (October, 1932), 728. 98 Stone, p. 207. 61

position is, therefore, realized by plowing through Melville’s

ironies and allegory. It is certain that this is one of the

primary reasons for the ethical stature of Pierre to have

been misinterpreted with such consistency. It is not so

much that Pierre’s heroic actions are naively taken up as

it is that he goes off on his mission faithlessly and,

unaware of his humanity and is, therefore, unguarded. ”It

is precisely because Pierre believes ’that man is a noble,

god-like being’ that he is destroyed."99

Pierre and his epoch had lost track of Christianity

and had accepted its more ’’livable” facsimile. It is because

Pierre does not have the assurance of Christ’s word in his

soul that he turns to following the mind and heart exclu­

sively. The conspicuousness of the absence of Christianity

in Pierre's society is the very thing that calls our atten­ tion to it. The confusion that results without it makes it apparent that its guiding and defining principles are needed.

Melville makes the contrasts in his book unmistakably clear.

Whereas the humanists in their zeal for reform appealed to the conscience of mankind, here is a man /the Christian faithful/ whose own conscience /is/ fallible in a particular situation; whereas the Romantics sought experience for experience's

99 h. Bruce Franklin, The Wake of the Gods : Melville's Mythology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963), p. 110. 62

sake, here is a man who acts in fear and trembling lest he offend God; whereas the middle-class Chris­ tian had ruled the demonic out of court, here is a man who gains holiness precisely by breaking with routine, taking a risk, and venturing into the unanticipated against the grain. °0

Such a concept of Pierre, although revolutionary, does seem

to concur with Melville’s attitudes. Pierre falls because

he has no faith. He desperately searches for faith but

only in the alternative choices available. When he rejects his Protestant Christianity he assumes he has rejected

Christianity. He battles the world forces, but is ill

equipped.

Hawthorne and Melville take the Christian view that human life is a battleground. For man embodies both good and evil. God and the Devil are active in the world; and man’s spiritual victories are won with God’s help, and in Hell’s despite.101

Unfortunately for Pierre, when he sacrifices his faith and does not consider non-secular Christianity as an alternative different from Protestant Christianity, he rules out the one solution to all of the plaguing ambiguities: that principle which Kierkegaard calls ’’the 'teleological suspension of

1^0 Clive, p. 78.

101 Stewart, p. 262. 63

the ethical,'" the transgression of moral principle in

’fear and trembling' as required and justified by reli­ gious faith."IO2

102 Clive, p. 75. Certainly one of the most illumina­ ting philosophical studies consulted for this study. (A-

CHAPTER THREE:

PIERRE: FAITHLESS VICTIM OF MORAL DUALISM

In my vain life I have seen everything; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteous­ ness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil-doing. Be not righteous overmuch, and do not make yourself overwise; why should you destroy yourself? Be not wicked overmuch, neither be a fool; why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand; for he who fears God shall come forth from them all.

Ecclesiastes 7: 15-18

One needs to look but a few pages into Pierre to recog­ nize dual standards at work, and there are abundant examples throughout the novel which buttress the idea that the essen­ tially Christian ethical concept exists but has been reshaped or entirely forgotten due to a humanistically-orientated society. Just as Saddle-Meadows is a political and social anachronism—but is nonetheless accepted as reality by nine­ teenth-century America—all of the characters are, in varying degrees, portraits of dual moral systems composed of contra­ dictory ethical components that are accepted as if harmonious.

The moral and social environment is what the reader first encounters; it is the factor, likewise, that causes whatever dramatic tension there is in the book. In the quest to under­ stand the problem of that social and ethical complex, Pierre traps and enslaves himself.

Because the essential problem in Pierre is a moral one. 65

the influence of Pierre's Saddle-Meadows culture is signifi­

cant. The medieval architecture of the buildings and the

obvious infatuation with traditionalism, for instance, lead

the reader to feel claustrophobic and smothered in a blinding

fog of heritage. It is in these images of cloudy vision,

restriction, and unreality that even the casual observer first

recognizes the moral paradox in Pierre's life. The hate,

pessimism, and distrust that characterizes Pierre in his final

moments is ironically rooted in his youthful love, optimism,

and trust in the morality of life from which he is unwilling

to accept any degree of deviation. As Pierre learns of the

worldly limitations of such basic moral systems as religion,

he rejects whole systems rather than accept such flaws.

What never becomes evident to Pierre is that religion

and its institutions, although imperfect, thrive on man's

faith in them. The Church, therefore, becomes the corpora­

tion of the "faithful" sinners. The Church is each indivi­

dual's faith in the word of God and, therefore, "Thou art

Peter and upon that rock I will build my church" takes on a new personal dimension that literally and symbolically applies to Pierre. Thus, the success of the Church is welded to the

fervor of Peter's (Pierre's) faith. The equation is complete

and totally unavoidable: if the rock of Pierre's faith turns to sand, the Church fails for man and through his despair God

is betrayed. Saddle-Meadows' social brand of Protestant

Christian humanism has so swept him up that when he finally 66

concludes that it is, after all, corrupt, he is willing

to trade his faith for a pin*s head. Likewise, when his

Protestant Christian "friend-God" proves contractually

unreliable and false, Pierre abandons God altogether.

The nature of Pierre’s dilemma is basically philo­

sophical, while the nature of Pierre and his environment

are essentially romantic and poetic. In the first

chapter, "Pierre Just Emerging From His Teens," we are

told that "Pierre was quite young and very unphilosophi-

cal" (p. 13)y but Melville gives his protagonist little

time to grow. In the third chapter, Isabel’s letter a

arrives and Pierre’s time of decision is at hand. In his present state of maturity and with his diluted

sense of Christian faith Pierre cannot cope effec­

tively with what is surely "a metaphysical and reli- 103 gious problem." It is significant to the present

interpretation of Pierre to keep in mind that the Saddle-

Meadows brand of Christianity that Grand Pierre established

103 Stone, p. 196. 67

was not enough to sustain Pierre.

It is important to an understanding of the story to realize that Pierre continues to keep his basic Christian faith, even after he has convinced him­ self that the so-called Christian world has corrupted and degraded the teachings of Jesus. His final scene with Rev. Falsgrave marks merely another step in his education: he realizes that the professional representatives of God are subject to human weakness and fault, and therefore he turns from such represen­ tatives to God himself.104

The power and significance of this scene, which tests

the strength of the fiber of Pierre’s Arcadian world as well

as his ideal morality, rests on two things that have gone

before.

First, it is to be recalled that Falsgrave is the

representative of Christianity to the house of Glendinning.

"Mrs. Glendinning had held him up to Pierre as a splendid

example of the polishing gentlemanising influences of Chris­

tianity upon the mind and manners . . . (p. 98). Mrs. Glen­

dinning, following this, asserts that this too was Mr. Glen­

dinning 's ideal, forming, therefore, a solid relationship between Falsgrave, Glendinning, and Christianity that Pierre had heretofore accepted. When Falsgrave is unmasked and

falls, Glendinning and Christianity fall accordingly.

The second thing occurs shortly after Pierre has received

104 Thompson, p. 266. 68

Isabel's letter and has cunningly exposed Falsgrave while breakfasting with "Queen Mary". Pierre ironically announces that he has abundant faith to see him through the challenge of this circumstance, but if faith lets him down he wants nothing to do with God. "On my strong faith in ye Invisibles,

I stake three whole felicities, and three whole lives this day. If ye forsake me now,—farewell to Faith, farewell to

Truth, farewell to God ..." (p. 107). The strength of commitment is easily seen here as well as its rationale.

It is the utilitarian covenant theology of Protestant humanism. God had better do His share or Pierre will walk out on Him! The immature and totally un-Christian ultimatum that Pierre delivers exhibits again his lack of understanding regarding the nature and spirit of God. So, when Pierre later encounters Falsgrave, he is actually exhibiting his incomplete knowledge of what Christianity is all about.

A hint from heaven assures me now, that thou hast no earnest and world-disdaining counsel for me. I must seek it direct from God Himself, whom, I now know, never delegates His holiest admonish- ings. ... I begin to see how thy professidnnis unavoidably entangled by all fleshly alliances, and cannot move with godly freedom in a world of bene­ fices (p. 164).

He has equated the Institution with God. Thus, when he discovers his mistake he completely disowns the Institution because of its innate imperfeetion. After having so rashly 69

judged Christianity upon only one circumstance (Saddle-

Meadows), Pierre believes he can accept counsel only directly

from God.

Pierre never questions his own ability to cope with

the messages that he expects will be forthcoming from God.

He remains unaware, however, that the Institution of the

Church—ordained to bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth—

was founded upon the solid, immovable, rock-like faith of

Peter. Without faith in the Institution with all its

imperfection, Pierre/(Peter) ironically rejects the supreme plan of God. From this line of logic it is ludicrous to

think that God would regard Pierre's faithlessness with

divine inspiration and counsel.

What is immediately evident about Pierre is his egocentricity: his dedication to virtue is not so much from love of virtue as from the thought that nothing less high can be the goal of one like himself. ... That is why he burns the offending portrait of his father, though a little charity, the recognition and forgiveness of his father's weakness, would have saved the portrait and encouraged a more mature form of the love for which it might then have stood!105

There are no heroes in Pierre. Melville tells us directly,

"Ah! Easy for man to think like a hero; but hard for man to act like one. All imaginable audacities readily enter the soul; few come boldly forth from it" (p. 178). All of the characters succumb to the temptations of their society. None

105 Stone, p. 196 70

resists the expedient notions of the world around them. No

Aristotelian hero exists here and Melville's story, therefore,

does not attempt to conform to the classical conventions.

The true hero commits himself to the rhythms of life and achieves a creative movility among extremes. The false hero is he who cannot achieve this mobility but commits himself, not to the tensions and harmonies within extremes, but to the extremes themselves. The false hero, in otherwords, is false because he tries to derive consciousness and morality from absolute values.106

The false hero cannot give freely of himself—cannot sacri­

fice—without expecting compensation for his gift. He is,

in other words, unable to recognize the necessity and value of the non-humanistic "teleological suspension of the ethical."

It has been said that the typical Christian heroes of the nineteenth century

accept/ed/ whatever happened to them without rebel­ liousness, but at the same time they refrained from indulging in the cynicism of unrequited virtue. Their exceptional behavior was attended by the following factors: spontaneous submission to necessity, heroic endurance of misfortune without subsequent disinte­ gration, and an oyer-all awareness of the precarious­ ness of finitude.10'

No such Christian exists in Pierre. Indeed, there are elements of the hero in Pierre, Isabel, and Lucy, but each in his own way breaks with the above Christian archetype. At

108 Chase, p. 137. Although Chase recognizes this fact he never goes on to apply it fully to the novel.

107 Clive, p. 79 71

times and in unequal proportions "Christ is all the characters

except the heartless or mindless people of the 'banded world.'"103 What we see in Pierre is a tendency of Pierre,

Isabel, and Lucy to become less human by ironically accepting

the subhuman and barbaric ethic of society. The farther

they move from the subjective Truth of Christianity the more

they take on neuter qualities.

The gradual translation of human life into inert matter which Pierre describes was a theme of the Old Testament writers, especially the writer of Ecclesiastes, who feared, with Pierre, that the events of this world have the strength of brass in contrast to which faith and philosophy are as thin as air and that, finally, despite all human desire, the world is only a monstrous idol to mechanical necessity.109

Yet, the "thorough-going Democrat" (p. 13) in Pierre is associated with the process of melting into society. The gradual loss of self and then final commitment to society implies identity with the common social image. Neither

Pierre, Isabel, nor Lucy is able to accept such total integration, yet due to faithlessness, jealousy, and selfish­ ness none of them turn to Christian salvation and hope.

Despair with their situations destroys the validity of their original commitments. While in New York, the epitome of the melting-pot, they learn that

108 Milton R. Stern, The Fine Hammered Steel of Herman Melville (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1957) p. 180.

109 Chase, p. 128. 72

always the individual loses individuality and identity in individualism, which is blind to his­ tory; always the individual gains individuality by subordinating his one-self to the needs and actuali­ ties of the total race.H®

Such a concept undoubtedly smacks of the utilitarian motive of the Protestant Christian ethic. As Milton Stern has put it, "the more one explores the book's characters, the more one finds that identity is pragmatically judged, in a fine parallel to the total view of the book's anti-idealism."Hl

One needs to keep in mind that it is not Pierre's mission that needs to be questioned but the attitudes under which he functions while involved in his quest. Pierre's idealism is made to look absurd, but only from his society's ethical angle of vision.

Melville deliberately places arguments which seem to be his, which seem to be correct, in the mouths of heartless characters in order to say that he finds no fault with either the fact or the inten­ tions of Pierre’s heartfulness, for it is basic and necessary; rather he finds faults with the direc­ tion and tactics.H2

(The question of incest that clouds the issues at hand in

Pierre will be discussed in a later section. But, if there

110 Stern, p 165.

Ill Stern, P 187.

Stern, pp. 190-191. Professor Stern makes little out of this point because of his concentration on the Plin- limmon Pamphlet which distracts from this seemingly minor issue. 73

was such a relationship at all it serves to emphasize the

need for ethical strength and religious faith. It also acts

symbolically to represent Pierre and Isabel's frailty and

the strength of temptation when levied against unguarded

souls.)

Melville concentrates on giving enough detail to his

characters so that their physical beings become unmistakeably nineteenth-century. The very mission which Pierre heart-

strongly commits himself to is in itself a nineteenth-century

Christian motif. Yet, the spiritual aspect of the characters is not truly Christian and they are, therefore, defeated and damned. Merlin Bowen, describing the conflict between Chris­ tian conscience and the social ethic, sees it as a battle of physical forces:

Pierre's avowed object is no longer transcendent virtue (for that is now seen to be unattainable) but truth: he must understand and express the thing that has happened to him. And in realizing this purpose, he devotes himself with characteristic intensity and lack of reservation to the life of the mind. But the heart still lives and speaks within him, centripetal still pulls against centri­ fugal, and Pierre continues to be torn between the two halves of his nature.113

The fact that Pierre takes action based upon the heart and then turns to schemes of the head reveals the confusion that may have been peculiar to the nineteenth-century:

The Long Encounter: Self and Experience in the Writings of Herman Melville. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960, p. 182. 74

Though the problem of conflicting higher loyalties, of good men challenging the goodness of their friends, is embodies in such classical figures as Socratesf and Job, to my knowledge it does not arise once either in a novel or in a philosophical essay written during the eighteenth century.114

It is important to see Pierre in this light because it accounts for that doubleness in ethical standard that is so easily accepted and so completely unrecognized by all the characters. Even Plotinus Plinlimmon, whom Milton Stern has referred to as "Melville’s most terrifying villain," is not to be held totally accountable for his sinfulness.1^

Society has accepted warped ethical attitudes for so long in

Pierre that now even his brand of philosophical apathy seems logical and finds a place in the culture of America.

Fate and Free Will:

Dual Agents of Despair and Isolation

Melville writes into the chapter which deals with Pierre‘s final decision and the rationale for it the notion of the inescapable effects of the society that man and his free will have created:

Unrecallably dead and gone from out the living world, again returned to utter helplessness, so far as this world went? his perished father seemed to appeal to the dutifulness and mercifulness of Pierre, in terms far more moving than though the accents proceeded from his mortal mouth. And what though not through the sin of Pierre, but through his father’s sin, that father’s fair fame now lay at the mercy of the son, and could only be kept invio-

Clive, p? 75.

115 Stern, p. 194 75

late by the son's free sacrifice of all earthly felicity ... (p. 177).

Pierre's reliance upon the cultural ethic is noticeable from

the beginning of the story, but in slight ways. Pierre

recognized a difference between the country and city environ ments. He knew that fate had favored him.

It had been the choice fate of Pierre to have been born and bred in the country. For to a noble Ameri­ can youth this indeed—more than in any other land— this indeed is a most rare and choice lot (p. 15).

It should strike a discordant note in a reader's mind to see the word "fate" used so often in a "Christian" society. The duality of ethic penetrates the surface subtly. The concen­ tration upon fate in Pierre is much more abundant than that of free will. Although Stone thinks "it is of course fate rather than his will that brings Pierre to his follies and sins," one cannot validate this conclusion in Christian terms.it is certain that fate (via the design or the designer of the universe) seems the culprit, if one accepts

Pierre's explanations or rationalizations as truth. But because of his naive shortsightedness, we must agree with

Stern who says that "we cannot believe what the early Pierre believes, not only about Lucy, but about anything. "H7

However, "there is thus room in the universe of Pierre for a conscious exertion of free will. Yet it is equally clear

116 Stone, p. 205.

117 Stern, p. 154 76

that Pierre's career is not wholly unaffected by chance and fate."11® Fatalism does seem to be involved in Pierre, but

only on the surface. When all the facts are given one can

determine that what earlier seemed uncontrollable fate is

actually controllable human behavior. More specifically,

when the phantom Fate is unmasked and its aura dissolved,

it is discovered that Pierre falls because of the moral

ineptitude which has grown from a slight personal wavering to

an acceptance of the social norm of unethical behavior.

(This is probably representative of the trend in 17th century

American Calvinism to "soften" its attitude toward man and to

humanize its attitude toward God, which ultimately resulted

in covenant theology and finally the half-way covenant. Not

Calvinistic in the truest sense, these theological/moral/

ethical compromises were disguised as Puritanism and Pietism.)

Seemingly uncontrollable from Pierre's present position—and with little regard to the controllability of the past—fate becomes a convenient scapegoat. To blame God for man's

inability to exercise faith in his Creator seems at least

shortsighted.

One might again be tempted to side with the pessimistic determinists,and charge that the main tragic conflict is that

of youth against fate. Since Pierre cannot control the

118 Charles Moorman, "Melville's Pierre in the City," American Literature, XXVII (January 1956), 573. 77

society into which he is born or the activities of his father, the naturalists might argue, he is left with no choice but the one he chooses. A closer look, however, will uncover the fault in such a deduction. We have already seen that Pierre's’ choice is between abandoning what he recognizes to be a corrupt social system or bowing to its moral double standard and allowing the plastic world of Saddle-Meadows to thrive.

Although sure of what should be done, Pierre prostitutes his ethic in favor of the social hypocrisy which he associates with his mother, with Falsgrave, and now with his father. He

"protects" them because of filial respect and because of the sacred prerogatives of the Commandments and his deep respect for God's clergy. He realizes that some misfortunes might befall him and that some hurt might come to others by his actions; but the price seems small and the question seems clear to him: "Lucy or God" (p. 181)?

The plan is initiated and the plot unfolds Pierre's avalanching miseries through to the book's conclusion. All of these choices Pierre rationally calculates and, almost entirely, controls. In regard to these factors, fate has little business. Pierre's first mistake affects all those to follow and acts to emphasize the effect of a social system which supports a moral dichotomy. He knows what is morally

True according to the word of Christ and the Ten Commandments

(recall the debate with Falsgrave) and yet he looks the other way when he feels the impinging condemnation of society on him and his family. His error leads him into another mistake 78

and another moral equivocation.' The strength of his filial

honor has become too godly—not worldly or mortal enough. He

is willing to "honor thy father and mother" even for their sins

without admitting that one should honor his parents in spite

of their sins. He is trying to protect an image of perfection

which reflects upon all the Glendinnings instead of asking for

forgiveness for the beloved but finite and sinful souls of

his parents. When the perfect image is destroyed Pierre

announces, "I will no more have a father" (p. 87). As Pierre

tries to escape his own error of concealment, he tries more

desperately to disown his father’s human sinfulness ;instead

of compassionately offering him heavenly mercy:

Steadfastly Pierre watched the first crispings and blackenings of the painted scroll /chair-portrait/; but started as suddenly unwinding from the burnt string that had tied it, for one swift instant, seen through the flame and smoke, the upwrithingpportrait tormentedly stared at him in beseeching horror, and then wrapped in one broad sheet of oily fire, disappeared forever...... k He ran back to the chest, and seizing repeated pack­ ages of family letters, and all sorts of miscellaneous memorials in paper, he threw them one after the other upon the fire. ... "all is ashes! Henceforth, cast-out Pierre hath no paternity, and no pasty and since the Future is one blank to ally therefore, twice-disinherited Pierre stands untrammelledly his ever-present self!—free to do his own self-will and present fancy to whatever end!" (pp. 198-199).

Pierre's inability to apportion his devotions properly be­

tween heaven and earth leads him to the serious human and heavenly error of mercilessness. Pierre's Christian charity

is tested and he fails bitterly. Pierre's disillusionment with his father is so complete, and his denial so totally without compassion, that he now associates his former "god" 79

with the fallen Lucifer:

Pierre's inmost soul fainted with amazement and abhorrence. Here the helplessness of all further light, and the eternal impossibility of logically exonerating his dead father, in his own mind, from the liability to this, and many other of the blackest self-insinuated suppositions; all this came over Pierre with a power so infernal and intense, that it could only have proceeded from the unretarded malice of the Evil One himself (p. 138).

Yet another mistake which Pierre makes is his dependence upon lies and concealment which he recognizes as wrong but demanded by the earthly, social situation. He feels that through his deception he is performing "a certain sort of charity of cruelty" (p. 183) which, in light of the conclusion, becomes ironic. From the earliest moment of deception Pierre's soul warns him against such action:

Though the conviction that he must never disclose his secret to his mother was originally an unmeditated, and as it were, an inspired one; yet now he was almost painstaking in scrutinizing the entire circumstances of the matter, in order that nothing might be over­ looked. For already he vaguely felt, that upon the concealment, or the disclosure of this thing, with reference to his mother, hinged his whole future course of conduct, his whole earthly weal, and Isabel's (p. 91).

With his plan to masquerade Isabel as his wife, Pierre uncovers the roots of his philosophical and moral problems. Yet, in his "most singular act of pious imposture, which he thought all heaven would justify in him" (p. 173), he is consciously rejecting the simplest and plainest Christian approach to the dilemma. Instead, he initiates a never-ending sequence of self-annihilating events: 80

Sucked within the Maelstrom, man must go round. Strike at one end the longest conceivable row of billiard balls in close contact, and the further­ most ball will start forth, while all the rest stand still; and yet that last ball was not struck at all. So, through long previous generations, whether of births or thoughts, Fate strikes the present man. Idly he disowns the blow's effect, because he felt no blow, and indeed, received no blow. But Pierre was not arguing Fixed Fate and Free Will, now; Fixed Fate and Free Will were arguing him, and Fixed Fate got the better in the debate (p. 182).

To the unphilosophical Pierre who joys in thoughts of heroics

and sport, the original thought of deception carries little

true moral value or significance.

Since man's moral texture is very porous, and things assumed upon the surface, at last strike in--hence, this outward habituation to the above-named ficti­ tiousness had insensibly disposed his mind to it as it were; but only innocently and pleasantly as yet. If, by any possibility, this general conceit be so, then to Pierre the times of sportfulness were as .« pregnant with the hours of earnestness; and in sport he learned the terms of woe (p. 177).

A final mistake, fully within the bounds of reason and controllability, is Pierre's lack of conviction in his pur­ pose. Aside from covering-up for his father, which is not a genuine purpose, Pierre's desire to right Isabel’s life is noble in conception. Motivated by the same fierce defense of the truest principles of Christianity as he is in his confrontation with Mrs. Glendinning and Rev. Falsgrave,

Pierre supports Isabel's claim (which in itself might be 81

another mistake).

The deep voice of the being of Isabel called to him from out the immense distances of sky and air, and there seemed no veto of the earth that could forbid her heavenly claim (p. 173).

Yet, as the plight of Isabel's defense becomes confusingly complex and as he comes to suffer the wrath of an unfor­ giving family and a misunderstanding society, Pierre's zeal turns into the flaming pessimism and atheism of Glen Stanly's murderer.

Pierre1s Faith vs. Fatalism and Free will

Pierre fails to recognize the hope that faith in God can provide. He disregards the most basic of all religious elements in that act and neglects the promise of the second coming and eternal salvation. He forgets that when God informed Abraham that He would allow man to struggle toward perfection and would provide means of absolution for Adam's posterity that He was recognizing man's finite nature.

By allowing the redemption of the species, God reaffirmed reason for man to have faith and to hope in God's bene­ volence. In terms of Christian doctrine, had Pierre 82

followed his mission through faithfully and avoided his

human lustfulness (if there was any) he would have reaffirmed

the purity of Christian doctrine that the society connected

with Saddle-Meadows had allowed to fall to decadence. It is

interesting, at this point, to realize that Pierre is his

society’s representative. "Pierre, in whom we have found

all ages of man to be comprehended, embodies the universal

experience of humanity and includes within himself both

fallen and unfallen man."11^ Although maverick in his ways

and excommunicated socially, he is the product of their world.

As Pierre morally falls he demonstrates only in physical terms

the spiritual disaster that has taken place in his society.

Yet, the door to optimism is left open. Although Pierre dies

both spiritually and mortally, (at least on the literal level

in the book) the spirit of hope is evidently alive. Even

though misdirected in Pierre and his world, hope prospers.

Man is in search of the right answer, the Truth. He searches for it in the illusionary fanaticism of the Apostles who fol­

low Plinlimmon, a possible reincarnation of Kant. He looks for it in the opportunities of the materialistic world that can offer him more "things." He even searches for it in the

119 Dichman, p. 706. 83

idealism of the absolutes of rational systems of metaphysics

as did Pierre. Hope lives in the minds of men; and as long

as it does, then the society of man is capable of finding

the perfection and salvation of God.

In the purest of Christian doctrine, man controls his

destiny with God’s help. It is faith and hope in God’s wis­

dom, power, and benevolence that the Christian relies on to offset his sinfulness.

Pierre is not evil by birth and definition, but by choice and vocation; he becomes the Devil’s agent by rejecting the morality of the community in which he has lived at peace, ends by calling the concepts of vice and virtue which he cannot really deny the substance of a dream.120

Fiedler is correct in much of what he says, but misses the submerged ethical point of Melville's story. Pierre does indeed become demonic, but it is not through the purpose of his mission. It is precisely in rejecting the social ethic that he, ironically, comes the closest to knowing

Christianity. It is because he despairs and loses faith in his task and in the end insults the only hope he has of suc­ cess that he falls and is damned.

"Had I been heartless now, disowned, and spurningly portioned off the girl at Saddle Meadows, then had

120 Leslie Fiedler. Love and Death in the American Novel. New York: Criterion Books, 1960, p. 455. 84

I been happy through a long life on earth, and per­ chance through a long eternity in heaven" (p. 360).

Pierre's obvious misunderstanding of Christianity's formula

for attaining heaven and that of the social ethic is clearly

seen here. Pierre encounters grief, and despair, through

the destruction of his father's illusionary perfection; the

inability of his mother to understand or support his problem;

his disgust with the hypocrisy of Falsgrave's doctrines; and,

his loss of the promise of pleasant ease through Lucy's

love.

For Pierre, like all people, has flaws and failings, and these are hopelessly tangled with his main prob­ lem. . . . his pride and self-satisfaction, justified in a degree by his aristocratic ancestry and his sheltered nurture. Misled, as a result, by over- confidence in the motives of his own mind and heart, Pierre glibly misinterprets his feeling toward Isabel, estimates much too highly his accomplishments as a writer, and mistakes mere suspicion for cer­ tainty with respect to his father's guilt. In con­ sequence, also, of his protected childhood in rural quiet, he at first finds no reason to believe even in the existence of evil—. . . Hl

There is little doubt that Pierre falls because he

lacks wisdom on all levels, including the ethical. The

anti-intellectualism that has always plagued America, also plagued the youth of Saddle-Meadows. Mary Glendinning indi­ cates clearly the sympathy under which Pierre was educated:

121 Watson, p. 217. 85

A noble boy, and docile ... he has all the frolic­ someness of youth, with little of its giddiness. And he does not grow vain-glorious in sophomorean wisdom. I thank Heaven I sent him not to college (p. 19).

Little wonder then that "the most traumatic aspect of Pierre's discovery of his half sister is probably the realization this knowledge brings him that his father (Pierre's anthro­ pomorphic God-image) is a seducer. "122 How ¿oes one handle having all the things he has loved, and values he has relied on, pulled from under him? Pierre falls because he is unwise, but his lack of wisdom is inherent and has been carefully nurtured. If there is a tragedy involved, it is the tragedy of a society that has turned from Truth and accepts the easier lie to replace it:

Through Pierre's mind there then darted a baleful thought; how that the truth should not always be paraded; how that sometimes a lie is heavenly, and truth infernal (p. 92).

Only significant in retrospect is the description of the ethical personality of Pierre's father. In what is obviously Melville's attempt at the mock heroic style, we are told:

It had been a maxim with the father of Pierre, that all gentlemanhood was vain; all claims to it

122 Kissane, p. 569 86

preposterous and absurd, unless the primeval gentle­ ness and golden humanities of religion had been so thoroughly wrought into the complete texture of the character, that he who pronounced himself gentle­ man, could also rightfully assume the meek, but kingly style of Christian (p. 6).

What we again have, then, is a reminder of the Christian

maxims learned in a sheltered world that did not offer the

temptations which would ultimately have served to strengthen

Pierre's faith. He later complains, "Is Grief a self-

willed guest that will come in? Yet I have never known

thee Grief—thou art a legend to me. . . . thou Grief art

still a ghost-story to me. I know thee not" (p. 41). The

impact of the association of Falsgrave as Mr. Glendinning's

spiritual surrogate now becomes even stronger. Pierre sees

not only Christians in the portraits of his grandfather and

father, but also gentlemen. In the Glendinning patriarch

Pierre sees

á sweet-hearted, charitable Christian; in fine, a pure, cheerful, childlike, blue-eyed, divine old man; in whose meek, majestic soul, the lion and the lamb embraced—fit image of his God. ... The majestic sweetness of this portrait was truly wonderful in its effects upon any sensitive and generous-minded young observer. For such, that portrait possessed the heavenly persuasiveness of angelic speech; a glorious gospel framed and hung upon the wall ... (p. 30).

It is to be recalled that because Pierre had been taught the "Christian" ideals "his affections bottomed on the 87

profoundest filial respect" (p. 14). Such an attitude in turn is transferred to the memory of his father through the constant tutelage of his mother. The drawing-room portrait ' that is endearingly translated for Pierre by Mary is a prime example. Pierre later explains that

the larger and more expansive portrait in the great drawing-room, taken in the prime of life; during the best and rosiest days of their wedded union; at the particular desire of my mother; and by a celebrated artist of her own election, and cos­ tumed after her own taste; and on all hands considered to be, by those who spiritually reinforced by my own dim infantile rememberances; for all these reasons, this drawing-room portrait possess an inestimable charm to her; there, she indeeds beholds her husband as he had really appeared to her (p. 83).

Therefore, Pierre, in his unphilosophical teenage stupor, could easily have presumed that if physical images indi­ cated gentlemanliness then the spiritual image was safely

Cnristian. Upon such faulty logic (Melville subtly implies it is faulty) Pierre naively evaluates himself while at

Saddle-Meadows. It is this inexperienced, uncritical, accep­ tance of surface realities for absolutes that Cousin Ralph, the artist, refers to in his insinuation that Mr. Glendinning’s physical image did not necessarily tell the story of his soul:

"I have painted nothing that looks as you there look" (p. 78).

When Pierre discovers what he decides is the truth about his father, he condemns not only the faulty ethics of aristocratic 88

gentility as lived at Saddle-Meadows but also the faulty

ethics of Christianity as he has come to know them. The

ethical world has, in a sense, collapsed and left Pierre to

sort the rubble,

profoundly sensible that his whole previous moral being was overturned, and that for him the fair structure of the world must, in some then unknown way, be entirely rebuilded again, from the lower-most corner-stone up (p. 87).

In his last encounter with Falsgrave, Pierre frantically bangs on the clergyman’s door late at night and shouts:

’’Everything is the matter; the whole world is the matter.

. . . Heaven and earth is the matter, sir!” (pp. 162-63).

Amid the ruins of this ethical catastrophe, Pierre discounts the Christian as causer and accusingly points at the Christian's institution: "But I do not blame thee; I think I begin to see how thy profession is unavoidably entangled by all fleshly alliances, and cannot move with godly freedom in a world of benefices" (p. 164).

When one considers Pierre's early plight from this point of view, he can recognize that "Pierre's faith is inseparably associated with the image of his dead father . . .

Thus, when Pierre's father, upon whom his religion is founded falls, his own faith cannot stand without its customary prop."123

123 Moorman, p. 19. 89

More important is the association that Pierre presumes to

exist between his earthly father and his Heavenly Father.

Just as Falsgrave serves as Mr. Glendinning’s spiritual and theological substitute to Pierre, Mr. Glendinning and his memory are blindly accepted by the youth as God the Father's earthly representative. Pierre's idealization of his father, therefore, has elevated Mr. Glendinning to the level of

Christ. "His father is in the image of God, and as God he had known him as the original source. In his innocence, he had looked on his father as unclouded, snow-white, and serene, as indeed many others have been brought up to look upon the mystical father of their being."124 Thus, Pierre becomes quickly disillusioned with the religion of Christ as it has been represented through his heritage when his symbol of goodness was revealed to be blemished.

Growth and Degeneration: Ironic Forces in Pierre

In following the Regenerating faith of Pierre in this way many more things take on new significance. One may notice, for instance, that in all subsequent references to

Mr. and Mrs. Glendinning, Saddle-Meadows, the Church, Fals­ grave, and Pierre's Adamic boyhood, Pierre looks upon them either as pleasant dreams or cynically castigates them for

124 Watson, p. 203 90

their falseness. In Pierre is displayed the essential irony

of human experience. He can never again live in what he thought to be paradise, but he can never again be deceived by its„mask. He knows, now, that

"in these flashing revelations of grief’s wonderful fire, we see all things as they are; and though, when the electric element is gone, the shadows once more descend, and the false outlines of objects again return; yet not with their former power to deceive; for now, even in the presence of the falsest aspects, we still retain the impressions of their immovable true ones, though, indeed, once more concealed" (p. 88).

We are dealing with much more than the initiation into the world of reality; more than an investigation of the trauma of the insatiable new appetites of puberty. The larger pur­ pose of Pierre is to offer broad views of the metaphysical problems of a society and precise frescoes of the philo­ sophical and psychological processes of decoding and value discrimination. In the case of Pierre, the social and intro­ spective revelations which slowly throw themselves open to him eventually flood the ill-prepared socio-religious dikes of his mind.

In the privacy of his own little closet, he could stand, or lean or sit before it all day long, if he pleased, and keep thinking, and thinking, and thinking, till by and by all thoughts were blurred, and at last there were no thoughts at all (p. 80). 91

The destruction which follows has caused the earlier ambiguities to expand and multiply into countless contradictions and hopelessly unanswerable queries.

Pierre's awakening into manhood is more debasing than enlarging. His discovery of inherent sinfulness, in his worshipped father and eventually in himself, would seem to argue a Calvinist theology, but there is no structuring faith, no belief in a God ordaining and controlling such a state of things.^25

Essentially, what has happened is that Pierre nurtures out of him any idea of the positive presence of sin in man. He sees and believes "that man is a noble, godlike being, full of the choicest juices; made up of strength and beauty" (p.

30). Even when he has almost convinced himself of his father's sinfulness, through Isabel's letter and his deciphering of the chair and drawing-room portraits, he finds it difficult to recognize and accept innate depravity. His rational self debates :

Consider in thy mind, Pierre, whether we two paintings may not make only one. ... In mature life, the world overlays and varnishes us, Pierre; then, we, as it were, abdicate ourselves, and take unto us another self, Pierre, in youth we are, Pierre, but in age we seem. Look again. I am thy real father, so much the more truly, as thou think est thou recognizest me not, Pierre (p. 83).

He hasn't the background of faith to provide the strength of

^25 Lebonwitz, pp. 171-72. 92

Job or the hope of Abraham or the persistence of the T 0 A Canaanite woman. He does not readily (if ever) recognize the finiteness of man--the essential dual nature of humanity.

Pierre’s cognizance of the fullness of man through the unifi­ cation of divergent parts is never entirely realized. "If he can be said to possess a 'tragic fault' at all, it is that of pride in his world."127 The iustful pride of Mrs. Glen­ dinning has saturated Pierre so thoroughly that he is unaware that his excessive pride is hubriastic and blasphemous to the point that God has become closely associated with the human.

To assume that the worldly, the horological, is Edenic and godly is to belittle the spiritual, to blaspheme, to commit the sin of pride, to fall as Lucifer did by equating God with the finite, with the lesser beings than He.128

Pierre cannot plead humbly because he has never known humility.

Although he may think of God as the Supreme Controller, he cannot act in accordance with that belief because he has been taught that he commands. Pierre thinks he has faith

126 Sesjyiatthew 15: 21-28 for the story of a Canaanite woman’s undying faith.

127 MOormanj pt 17.

128 Watkins, p. 44. 93

when he mistakenly interprets his stubborn pride:

He seemed to feel that in his deepest soul, lurked an indefinite but potential faith, which could rule in the interregnum of all hereditary belief, and circumstantial persuasions; not wholly, he felt, was his soul in anarchy (p. 87).

Pierre cannot have faith in a Calvinistically Christian

God because he has known the deistic, rational God of Locke

as the Christian God. Wrapped in only the semantics of

Christianity and falsely guarded by mistaken faith and with

pitifully little actual knowledge of Christianity, Pierre

sets out to prove that Christian principles work. Seen in

this way, the ironic quest of Pierre can expect little hope

of success.

The philosophical growth of Pierre that is juxtaposed to the ethical tragedy is certainly meant to be ironic.

Although some have argued that his fall is fortunate, one must not accept that Hawthornesque explanation too hastily.

Pierre gains gradually in insight as the romance progresses; yet one cannot so readily assume that the sacrifice made leads to a more vital knowledge. The nature of the sacrifice and what is gotten in exchange seems to be what is in question here. It is fair to concede that if Pierre gives up on

Saddle-Meadows, his mother and father, Falsgrave, and the general community of America; alone his sacrifice might seem 94

justified.' But the greatest sacrifice is that of faith which ultimately leaves Pierre with only the ashes of despair.

The barter of faith for rational philosophic insight is far

too uneven. When the infant philosopher cries to the world

they let him drown;and.Pierre counters misanthropically and curses them all. When he calls to God in his arrogance, demanding salvation, and gives to issuing ultimatums to

Heaven, he expects in his rational mind positive action. The further he sinks the louder his curses grow--and he decides that God has forsaken him:

That hour of life of a man when first the help of humanity fails him, and he learns that in his obscu­ rity and indigence humanity holds him a dog and no man; that hour is a hard one, but not the hardest. There is still another hour which follows, when he learns that in his infinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do likewise despise him, and own him not of their clan. Divinity and humanity then are equally willing that he should starve in the street for all that either will do for him. Now cruel father and mother have both let go his hand, and the little soul-toddler, now you shall hear his shriek and his wail, and often his fall. When at Saddle-Meadows, Pierre had wavered and trembled in those first wretched hours ensuing upon the receipt of Isabel's letter; then humanity had let go the hand of Pierre, and therefore his cry; but when at last inured to this, Pierre was seated at his book, willing that humanity should desert him, so long as he thought he felt a far higher support; then, ere long, he began to feel the utter loss of that other support, too; ay, even the paternal gods themselves did now desert Pierre; the toddler was toddling entirely alone, and not without shriek (p. 296). 95

To question Pierre's sense of values too forcefully is to

disregard all that affects Pierre's young life; it is to turn

him into a simple-functioning robot whose mechanism can be

diagnosed by simply unscrewing the cover and peering in.

Pierre, organism of complexities, is swarmed over by para­

doxes which he calls "ambiguities."

Possibilities for Romantic Justification

of Pierre's Quest

Although it has been shown that Pierre throws his

faith in God and man to the wind, one cannot afford the moral

luxury of total condemnation. It seems quite clear that

Melville is not ready to make such a judgment. "Because

Pierre trusts his possibly corrupt heart, Melville does not therefore brand him a fool or a lecher. "H9 jn fact,

Matthiessen notes that

In his letter about "Ethan Brand" Melville, had declared, to be sure, "I stand for the heart. To the gods with the head!" But Melville know as well as Hawthornedthat the two forces must be in equi­ librium; and he knew that Pierre was fated for disas­ ter when he threw away all pondering and scruples and cried: "The heart! The heart! 'tis God's anointed; let me pursue the heart! "HO

Melville is enough a romantic and inclined to the senses to find in Pierre fresh and vital breezes new to

129 Franklin, p. 105.

130 Matthiessen, p. 468. 96

America. It is again the lack of prevailing strength or faith coupled with unfettered pride which makes Pierre only a fond wish, a myth, and not a reality. Much critical ink has been spilled, with little result, over what Melville thought of the boy Pierre. There exist no known documents in which such evidence is available; therefore, all that is known is inferred from the text of Pierre itself. In one reading, Lawrance Thompson, who usually looks on the story disapprovingly, notices that

Melville does see that Pierre’s position is ridiculous. but not for the reason that, the shallow world /6r most of Melville’s critics/ sees idealism as ridicu­ lous. Idealism like Pierre's is ridiculous, says Melville, because it is made absolutely impossible by God almighty, and by society as an unconscious tool of God.131

The context of my present argument wholly disputes

Thompson's last sentence which assumes that Plinlimmon's philosophy is fully shared by Melville. That society is at fault and is being tried in Pierre is demonstrable, but the metaphysics that Thompson applies to its unconscious func­ tioning is not. It is clearer, from the text, that Melville thinks Pierre ridiculous because he refuses to recognize his innate finiteness. It is not the concept of idealism that

131 Thompson, p. 278 97

Melville finds ridiculous, but the rejection of the inherent

limitations of human perfectability: a prideful naivete of which Pierre is the symbolic representative of a pride-soaked society. "Great as the sympathy of Melville for Pierre may be, it is not justification; and to read Pierre as approved and justified (instead of merely explained) is to be more modern and skeptical than Melville himself."!32

The most substantive sections of the book deal with

Pierre's interaction with society brought on by his devotion to a cause. From the beginning of chapter ten#when Pierre comes to final grips with the importance of the cause,to the end of the book one is called upon, however, to sort the substantive from the metaphysical. We recognize the inherent problems involved in making such discriminations when we are told:

From the first, determined at all hazards to hold his father's fair fame inviolate from anything he should do in reference to protecting Isabel, and extending to her a brother's utmost devotedness and love; and equally determined not to shake his mother’s lasting peace by any useless exposure of unwelcome facts; and yet vowed in his deepest soul some way to embrace Isabel before the world, and yield to her his constant consolation and companion­ ship . . . (pp. 172-173).

132 Watkins, p. 48. 98

Yet, after Pierre confirms that he will pursue the defense of

the Glendinning honor on all levels, one must ask for some

clarification of Pierre's motives. It is in dealing with

the questions of philosophy and psychology that the substan­

tive materials come alive with fuller meaning.

Aside from Murray's impressive psychoanalytical inter­

pretation, there have been no significant contributions

in this area. And, in the case of Dr. Murray, one must

conclude that what we often get is a psychoanalysis of

Melville instead of Pierre. There are several alternative

hypotheses that can be raised and as many proofs and solu­

tions given regarding this problem of motivation. Yet,

as the complexities of Pierre's motives are unraveled,

many of the physical and metaphysical ambiguities dissolve.

At the same time, to find answers to this question is to

define the elements that create the aura of tragedy in

this book. Tragic elements are seen in all of the critical explanations of the book and this might indicate a con­ scious effort at tragic-hero role playing by Pierre. Merlin

Bowen has noted that "the essence of tragedy is . . . to be seen in the fate which presents a generous but unfin­ ished nature with a task which it has neither the selfishness 99

to refuse nor the strength and mature wisdom to carry out.”133

Pierre’s reasons and objectives are only half-known to himself; there is no one single motive that accounts for all of his actions. H. Bruce Franklin suggests that

to argue that Pierre's literally enthusiastic plunge into his relation with Isabel is either simply foolish, simply lustful, or simply divine is grossly to over­ simplify Pierre. Pierre's enthusiasm, which meta­ morphoses the unfettered boy into the buried giant, is at once ambiguously foolish, lustful, and divine. 34

Important to Franklin's point is the emphasis he places upon

Pierre's impetuousness and over-zealousness. Melville notes this quality just at the moment in which Pierre makes his

"final resolution":

It is either the gracious or the malicious gift of the gods to man, that on the threshold of any wholly new and momentous devoted enterprise, the thousand ulterior intricacies and imperillings to which it must conduct; these, at the outset, are mostly _ withheld from sight ... By /the young enthusiast's/ eagerness, all objects are deceptively foreshortened; by his intensity each object is viewed as detached; so that essentially and relatively everything is misseen by him. . . . And now we behold this hapless youth all eager to involve himself in such and inextricable twist of Fate, that the three dextrous maids themselves could hardly disentangle him, if once he tie the complicating knots about him and Isabel (p. 175).

133 Bowen, p. 165.

134 Frankiin, p. 105. 100

Yet it is not the "oversights and inconsistencies" which

are "sometimes begot in young and over-ardent souls" that

is in itself tragic. It is rather the irrevocable position

one accepts jointly with his commitment/, It is the eternal

and unalterable condition which must be accepted. There is

no chance to refuse the effects of one's own decision. This

stalwart resolve produces the tragedy or at least it provides

the tragic impetus. Without this factor no tragedy could be possible. Although in a half-mocking tone, Melville recog­ nizes this and says

Ah, thou rash boy! are there no couriers in the air to warn thee away from these imperillings, and point thee to those Cretan labyrinths, to which thy life's cord is leading thee? Where now are the high beneficences? Whither fled the sweet angels that are alleged guardians to man (p. 176)?

It is at this point that Pierre can most use true Christian faith; but, as has been shown, Pierre has repudiated Christ’s institution as he had come to know it.

Pierre fails to see, rationalized as it has been into the appearance of filial piety, the human weak­ ness which has led him to equivocate in the matter of the open acknowledgement of Isabel as his sister. Once he has made the mistake of excluding that obvious and straightforward solution, he cannot possibly go right: he must turn his back either upon 'Truth' or upon life. His real error, therefore, lies not in the championing of Isabel but in his choice of means.133

135 Bowen, p. 175. 101

In the context of the present argument one can see that

Pierre’s mistake is one of compromise--a moral equivocation for a social cause. Primary in Pierre’s mind is the salva­ tion of his father’s social reputation and his mother’s esteem in the community.

Pierre's_conception of himself as Christian knight- errant /is/ compromised. For all Pierre’s love of chivalric standards, he has never been given oppor­ tunity to engage in a ’mortal quarrel’. . . . His physical training has been directed toward the 'physi­ cal world’; it cannot help in a moral struggle.^36

Even if we are to accept Pierre’s surface reasoning for asking

Isabel to masquerade as his wife, we detect a fear of social reprisal. Ironically enough, it is Pierre’s disgust with the baldness and hollowness of social castigation that prompts his irritation and insolence with his mother and Falsgrave during their breakfast-table debate about Delly Ulver.

Although he rejects it on principle, he seems to recognize the social morality (maybe only for convenience’ sake) as a reality. Pierre, then, can be seen as unsteady in his own understanding of the ethic which, to him, seems unshakable and impenetrable. Again, this pride in his moral invincibility can be attributed, as was earlier explained, to his heritage and community. When an ethical sacrifice seems most in

•^•36 Moorman, p. 18. 102

demand in order to satisfy the perceived, twisted, social

demand, Pierre capitulates and exposes his humanness and

frailty:

Now his whole life would, in the eyes of the wide humanity, be covered with an all-pervading haze of i incurable sinisterness, possibly not to be removed even in the concluding hour of death. Such, oh thou son of man! are the perils and the miseries thou callest down on thee, when, even in a virtuous cause, thou steppest aside from those arbitrary lines of conduct, by which the common world, however base and dastardly, surrounds thee for thy worldly good (p. 176).

Pierre's Rejection of Moral Idealism:

Three Approaches

We shall see from the upcoming discussion of his motives

that there are, implied in the book, three possible expla­

nations of Pierre's sacrificing moral idealism. First, he

may realize that his idealism provides a pleasant goal and

may even represent the objective that he forecasts for man­ kind at some future time. But the world of men as it is

demands elasticity in one's ethical system. Second, he may,

during moments of enthusiasm and youthful glorification, see himself capable of classical moral heroics, but at a later

time recognizes that his finiteness cannot support such a

supremely noble hypothesis. And third, he may believe so thoroughly in the effectiveness of the word of Christ that he presumes that he is sufficiently insulated from the chas­ tisements of the world around him. When he begins to feel directly the sharp point of criticism because of his noble 103

action, he deems the system of Christ wrong and himself duped.

Pierre, emulating the saints, consciously stakes everything upon what he conceives to be a Christ- like way of life. The experiment really constitutes for him a test of the efficacy of true Christian conduct.137

The first explanation, the flexibility of ideal objec­ tives, must be rejected because of Pierre's obvious rejection of Plinlimmon's system of expedient living. He recognizes itssvalue is limited only to immediacy, because he is func­ tioning within a basic Christian framework which has built-in the philosophy of good-works and clean living as ways of attaining universal rewards. In regard to the second and third possibilities, Pierre's momentary heroics and his passive acceptance of the word of Christ, it seems clear from the development and plot of the story as well as the linear movement of the dialectic that Pierre can, in alternating fashion, be explained from both positions. The narrator helps to move us to accepting this notion of oscilating positions by offering this juxtaposition:

There is a dark, mad mystery in some human hearts, which, sometimes, during the tyranny of a usurper mood, leads them to be all eagerness to cast off the most intense beloved bond ... and forsaking

137 Tyrus Hillway, "Pierre, the Fool of Virtue," American Literature, XXI (May 1949), 201-11. 104

the palpitating forms of mortal love, we emptily embrace the boundless and the unbodied air. We think we are not human; we become as immortal bachelors and gods; but again, like the Greek gods themselves, prone we descend to earth; glad to be uxorious once more; glad to hide these god-like heads within the bosoms made of too-seducing clay. Weary with the invariable earth, the restless sailor breaks from every enfolding arm, and puts to sea in height of tempest that blows off shore. But in long night-watches at the antipodes, how heavily that ocean gloom lies in vast bales upon the deck; thinking that that very moment in his deserted hamlet-home the household sun is high, and many a sun-eyed maiden meridian as the sun. He curses Fate; himself he curses; his senseless madness, which is himself. For whoso once has known this sweet knowledge, and then fled it; in absence, to him the avenging dream will come. Pierre was now this vulnerable god; this self­ unbraiding sailor; this dreamer of the avenging dream (pp. 181-182).

One can recognize these explanations as valid after consid­ ering Pierre's disillusionment in his fallibility as well as his despair in having chosen to defend Isabel. The signifi­ cance is important. Through the eventual insanity he causes his mother, his ostracizing from family and community, his loss of position and economic security as well as social happiness, Pierre recognizes that he greatly overestimated his powers to cope with the multifold problems his decision has caused him. He also comes to perceive, but only vaguely, that his faith has not been strong enough. He never does see the most basic reason for his decay and destruction. He 105

accepts what the world has to give and charges the fates a as having been cruel to him. He passively accepts the world's judgments, but never stops to reexamine his ori­ ginal goals. "Could they work if something was changed?"

is never asked even on the rhetorical level. Pierre's blind acceptance of his failure and his inability or unwillingness to retrospectively examine his motives and mode of opera­ tion is his greatest failure and sin. However, it is pos­ sible to ask whether we should expect that Pierre return to himself and his soul for the answers. "His grief seems to him final and irremediable largely because it has come upon him so suddenly and overwhelmingly, before the exper­ ience of lesser griefs has shown him anything of the soul's powers of recuperation."13®

It becomes clear, then, that the tragedy and sin of

Pierre is the secondary issue to the primary one of the effects of a corrupted Christian society on its offspring.

Pierre's Unconscious Motives

The notion that Pierre is not entirely aware of what is driving his thoughts and decisions leads us to consider the duality of his motives. In considering the unconscious

138 Bowen, p. 169 106

motivations of Pierre, the reader is well advised to look

into Dr. Murray's treatise on the subject. Although flawed

as literary criticism, it is an abundant representation of

the psyche of Pierre; therefore, we will simply serve as

an addendum of textual example in order to fortify his

assumptions. Without delving too deeply into Dr. Murray's

realm of psychoanalysis, it is suggested in summary of

subconscious motives that Pierre's earliest actions are

produced by ego and his quest for acclaim as a Glendinning hero; puerile impulsiveness and a lack of discrimination

acuity; confusion in sexual typing and an unconscious yearning for Oedipal and Electra-relation fulfillment;

and an ill-defined sense of the love-relationship and the

importance and necessity of sexual consummation.

As Geoffrey Stone mentioned earlier, Pierre's ego-

centricity is immediately noticeable. We can recall the pride with which he carried himself while accompanying his mother to the sewing-bee; his acute and constant awareness of the Glendinning name from his ancestor, Grand Pierre; his

early romance with Lucy which was the only satisfactory

arrangement that could possibly exist; his abuse of and 107

snobbish attitude toward Dates? and, his disbelief in the

fact that he could be poor, unnoticed in the city, rejected by his family, called a liar by his friends, and considered a failure and a fraud by his publishers. The major inci­ dents dealing with Lucy and Isabel, as well as Mary and

Reverend Falsgrave, are saturated in Pierre’s egoism.

Murray, along with many others, has recognized that the entire sequence of events directly relating to Mr. Glen­ dinning' s honor can all be described as unconscious defense mechanism and an all-out exercise in ego gratification.

Pierre's impulsive nature is directly alluded to several times by Melville. While seeing this impulsive­ ness more clearly in certain major scenes, one can also profit by considering some of the lesser episodes.

While one is concentrating on the archaicly symbolic language of the first few chapters, for example, Melville is concurrently suggesting the whimsical and fancy­ following nature of Pierre. He describes Pierre's world as wonder-smitten, trance-like, a verdant trance, and touched and bewitched before the first page is turned. Pierre is shown taking unpredicted walks to 108

Lucy’s house directed by little more than passion. He is

instantly awe-stricken by the girl at the Pennies' house for no apparent reason other than the strangeness of her glance.

He makes impulsive and unplanned advances toward Lucy while

in the woods. He impulsively jumps amidst the steeds while running at full speed to prove himself noble and brave to Lucy. He presumes, with little proof other than presenti­ ments, that his father is guilty and that Isabel is his sister and that she is telling the truth about her past life. He spontaneously concocts the planned deception of everyone in order to save Isabel. He, with little premeditation, decides that he must swear-off Lucy and announces to her that he is married. His second encounter with Falsgrave at the parsonage comes about impulsively and his dialogue from that scene is powerful, but filled with the impulsiveness of frenzy. He burns the chair-portrait and letters, leaves Saddle-Meadows, chooses his rooms in New York, castigates Milthrope's philo­ sophy, visits Glen Stanly, decides to kill, and chooses to take his lifer-rail on impulse.

Pierre's sexual drives are of a large importance because, while considering the unconscious motivation, it can be seen that his latent desires are what moves and gives dramatic tension to the story. The obvious importance that 109

is placed upon the image of his father is clear from the dis­ cussion earlier. But, it must be kept in mind that it is just an image and that Pierre's father was absent. The wish- fulfillment for which he strives is impossible and, therefore, frustrating. His father is all around him yet he is not there.

Through this void Pierre becomes insatiate in his desire to have the thing on which all other things hinge. His quest is not so much to clear up his father's name, but to discover and know and have his father. Although masculine in physique,

Pierre is of feminine emotion and desire. Pierre is Mary's child and is, therefore, through such close and isolated association, a kind of Mary himself. He is repulsed when first hearing of the charges against his father and is driven by emotional, impulsive behavior to destroy the memory of his father by rashly throwing him to the destructive fires.

Although he later condemns what he knows full well will be his mother's reaction to the discovery about his father, he himself secretly disbelieves the truth, or at least constantly questions it. His whole line of action can be traced to the preservation of the untainted ideal (or idol) that he des­ perately wants his father to be. If he accepts his father's fall from virtue, he will have accepted the violation of himself vicariously. 110

Pierre’s devotion to Mary is much less than filial

according to the psychoanalytic critics. Pierre never lived

in an environment that sponsored a healthy attitude toward

his mother. Mary is not a mother, but a coquettish acquain­

tance who teases him into fits of passion. Although restrained

by Mary’s role as the Queen of the manor and source of dis­

cipline and catalyst of respect, Pierre’s mind has come to

be able to accept her as his sister, someone who because of

her physical charms and stately manner would be a prime target

for some unscrupulous male force. Even though Pierre con­

ceives his role of "brother" to be one of protector, his

consciousness recognizes what potential pleasures lay under

that silken gown. His manly physique throbs for such animal

fulfillment, but his feminine morality argues for refined and

social restraint. Similar arguments can be made in the cases

of Lucy and Isabel. Isabel conforms to the image that Mary

had given to Pierre with a major exception and a major addi­

tion. Isabel has no trace of authority and, in Pierre's way

of thinking, no claim to the kind of social respect that

Mary demands. Isabel does add the mystique which activates

Pierre’s masculine desires to a level of dominence (if we

are ready to accept the idea of incest at all). Although

in his most rational moments Pierre considers the girl his Ill

sister and directs to her the virtuous protection to which she is entitled, the eye of the animal Pierre is attracted by the bulge and throb of her bosom. Because of his uncon­ scious recognition of a social difference between Mary,

Lucy, and Isabel, his actions toward them are variant.

Whereas he rejects physical consummation with Mary because of her power and enjoys her vicariously and probably through an unconscious system of sublimations, he accepts Isabel as a prime target for consummation because of her sordid back­ ground and her socially repulsive roots as well as her special and unusual charms. Lucy is rejected because she too appeals to his feminine qualities. Lucy has none of the social prowess that Mary has. True, she has social position, but she has none of that self-assertiveness and boldness which flaunts her good fortune; when she does become bold and decisive her sympathies take an anti-social direction. Lucy is rejected because Pierre cannot find any attractively sensuous physical quality in her. He sees in her, rather, spiritual qualities that are repulsive to animal sensuousness.

When he looks at her bed and later thinks of being married to her, he thinks that marriage is too dirty to be associated with such an angelic being. In other words, Lucy is only satisfying to Pierre’s feminine, spiritual, honor-seeking 112

self, but his animal urges are so strong and sometimes uncontrollable that he would consider a union with such a being as Lucy to be blasphemous and rapacious. Torn by the paradox that he sees existing in him and unwilling to admit his human weakness, Pierre pridefully moves to an acceptance of the inevitable. Although submerged in intense moral and philosophical conflict in Pierre, this paradox is quite standard for Melville fiction.

Melville’s sexual implications have symbolic over­ tones which are socio-ontological. Man’s sex is an inevitable courting of his own continued existence? the dualities of Melvillian characters are finally unions of man’s aspiring and man's animal facets. . . .139

Pierre's Conscious Motives

Not only is Pierre driven by unconscious motives? he consciously recognizes life as a series of roles that need to be acted out. The circumstances are given and the script written? all one has to do is perform the roles as directed.

139 Stern, p. 165. 113

However contrived the role may be, it seems real and

vital to Pierre and, therefore, calls upon him to exert his entire self. For instance, one can see in Pierre an

effort to consciously cast himself as the wounded son who must avenge his father's honor, a Hamlet? a Galahad who must, at all costs, save the virtue of the unprotected

fairer sex? Pierre is a Savior to a fallen community of men. There is, too, the Don Juan and sensual lover arche­ type with which Pierre identifies? he is the picture of masculinity. And he can be seen as the fallen angel, wreaking his revenge and hatred for the Universe wherever he goes and in whatever he does? he is the horrified atheist.

When this system of masquerades and role fantasies becomes disenfranchised from the cooperating and conde­ scending Saddle-Meadows and Pierre applies it to the real world, one that is not a charitable and well mannered audience, he finds that his talents do not match the plot demands.

Pierre as Hamlet

The role of Hamlet or that of the avenging son becomes the first one that Pierre feels compelled to follow. In an attempt to make the sixteenth century motif more obvious, 114

Melville readily employs the literary modes popular in Shake­

speare’s day. Through the use of Renaissance dialogue, which

in itself might be parody of sentimentalism, Melville works

in sections which provide for a number of Shakespearean

sequences of poetical language and technique. For instance,

in the first book we are set on track by a rather lengthy and

ironical exchange between Mary and Pierre where the youth is

compared to the flightiness of Romeo:

"after this I shall drop the fine, and call Dates nothing but fellow;--Fellow, come here!--how will that answer?" "Not at all, Pierre--but you are a Romeo, you know, and so for the present I passover your nonsense." "Romeo! oh, no. I am far from being Romeo," sighed Pierre. "I laugh, but he cried; poor Romeo! alas, Romeo! woe is me, Romeo! he came to a very deplo­ rable end, did Romeo, sister Mary." "It was his own fault though." "Poor Romeo!" "He was disobedient to his parents." "Alas, Romeo!" "He married against their particular wishes." "Woe is me, Romeo!" "But you, Pierre, are going to be married before long, I trust, not to a Capulet, but to one of our own Montagues; and so Romeo’s evil fortune will hardly be yours. You will be happy" (p. 18).

Similarly in the next book, Melville arranges for an exchange between Pierre and Lucy which is highly reminiscent of those between Romeo and Juliet:

"Ah! thou too ardent and impetuous Pierre!" "Nay, thou too moist and changeful April! know’st 115

thou not, that the moist and changeful April is followed by the glad, assured, and showerless joy of June? And this, Lucy, this day should be thy June, even as it is the earth's!” "Ah, Pierre! not June to me. But say, are not the sweets of June made sweet by the April tears?" "Ay, love! but here fall more drops,--more and more;--these showers are longer than beseem the April, and pertain not to the June." "June! June!--thou bride's month of the summer,-- following the spring's sweet courtship of the earth,-- my June, my June is yet to come!" "oh! yet to come, but fixedly decreed;--good as come, and better" (p. 36).

This dialogue ceases as the story begins to unfold and it becomes clearer that Melville is merely using such tech­ niques to emphasize the universality of the problems that both he and Shakespeare recognize. He turns also to using stock Shakespearean maneuvers for the sake of elaboration and close parallel with the situations of the playwright's plots. When Pierre is paying one of his casual visits to

Lucy's home, Melville employs the classic case of mistaken identity which recalls scenes from Cymbeline and Twelfth

Night :

/.Lucy's two brothers/ stared at Pierre, finding him on the sofa, and Lucy not very remote. "Pray, be seated, gentlemen," said Pierre. "Plenty of room." "My darling brothers!" cried Lucy, embracing them. "My darling brothers and sister!" cried Pierre, folding them together. "Pray, hold off, sir," said the elder brother, who had served as a passed midshipman for the last 116

two weeks. The younger brother retreated a little, and clapped his hand upon his dirk, syaing, "Sir, we are from the Mediterranean. Sir, permit me to say, this is decidedly improper! Who may you be, sir?" "I can't explain for joy," cried Pierre, hil­ ariously embracing them all again. "Most extraordinary!" cried the elder brother, extricating his shirt-collar from the embrace, and pulling it up vehemently. "Draw!" cried the younger, intrepidly. "Peace, foolish fellows," cried Lucy--"this is your old playfellow, Pierre Glendinning" (pp. 28-29).

By implying the existing parallels between his own vision and that of Shakespeare, Melville readies the reader to accept his Hamlet-like plot. He places Pierre firmly in the middle of a situation which emphasizes the gallant and virtuous life of his dead father. Pierre's mother, although devoted and deeply moved by her husband's death, is worldly and is being courted by another man of noble social esteem. Just as the ghost visits upon Hamlet the fated message which leads him to his final revenge, so does Isabel, a ghost of Pierre's father, give Pierre the fated letter which leads him to act as a filial protector. Warner Berthoff has also noted that

in composing Pierre Melville laid his hand to.various means of emphasis and elaboration--analogies with the history of Christ, allusions to the Inferno and Hamlet . . . all of /which/ has resulted in as many philosophical, allegorical, and psycho-biographical interpretations as may be imagined. -*-40

140 Berthoff, pp. 48-49. 117

Although the first direct reference to Hamlet does not come

about until section two of book nine, there are at least two

other places earlier where the Hamlet syndrome can be detected.

The first of these is the point of commitment for Pierre who,

like Hamlet, is suddenly taken up by a ghost whom he is

unsure of being from heaven or hell. In the furious and

forceful tone of a soliloquy Pierre says:

Thou Black Knight, that with viser down, thus con- frontest me, and mockest at me; lo! I strike through thy helm, and will see thy face, be it Gorgon! Let me go, ye fond affections; all piety leave me;--I will be impious, for piety hath juggled me, and taught me to revere, where I should spurn (pp. 65-66).

The second instance occurs when Pierre exhibits Hamlet’s

unswerving devotion to his father’s revenge. Like Hamlet,

Pierre too believes that fate has entered his life and that he functions only because it has been assigned his duty to

function. Pierre's vengeance is against a misunderstanding world and, therefore, takes the form of the redemption of his father's ill deed through raising his sister to her pro­ per social position. He must be totally devoted to the task

and must not admit any distractions that the world may pre­

sent in order to insure his success. As Hamlet cast off

Ophelia out of love for her so must Pierre spurn Lucy:

Divinely dedicated as he felt himself to be; with divine commands upon him to befriend and 118

champion Isabel, through all conceivable contingen­ cies of Time and Chance; how could he ensure himself against the insidious inroads of self-interest, and hold intact all his unselfish magnanimities, if once he should permit the distracting thought of Lucy to dispute with Isabel’s the pervading possession of his soul? (p. 106)

With the stage set and the situation at the proper point of

development, Melville unveils formally the Hamlet/Pierre

parallel.

Melville introduces the Hamlet analogy at just the proper time. Just as the ghost, as an external concretion of what lies within Hamlet, is something that must be shaped by Hamlet in his own career, so Pierre, according to each new experience, must constantly recast Isabel.141

Used not only to foreshadow coming events, but to explain

them in the desired context, Pierre's encounter with the

tragedy takes on significance. Important too is the volume

that Pierre considers at the same time as he reads Hamlet,

The Inferno of Dante. Within these two works Pierre pictures

himself and his own world. To him the hopeless, paradoxical

nature of his problem seems identical to that of the sojourner entering The Inferno; while he sees in Hamlet’s situation the

torn soul and the destroyed youth that noble devotion such

as his reaps.

His mind was wandering and vague; his arm

141 Stern, p. 183 119

wandered and was vague. Soon he found the open Inferno in his hand, and his eyes met the following lines, allegorically overscribed within the arch of the outgoings of the womb of human life: "Through me you pass into the city of Woe Through me you pass into eternal pain; Through me, among the people lost for aye.

All hope abandon, ye who enter here." He dropped the fatal volume from his hand; he dropped his fated head upon his chest. His mind was wandering and vague; his arm wandered and was vague. Some moments passed, and he found the open Hamlet in his hand, and his eyes met the following lines: "The time is out of joint;--Oh cursed spite That ever I was born to set it right!" He dropped the too true volume from his hand; his petrifying heart dropped hollowly within him, as a pebble down Carisbrooke well (p. 168).

From here the narrator moves to explaining the special significances that Hamlet holds for Pierre. Effectively punning, he says,

If . . . the pregnant tragedy of Hamlet convey any one particular moral at all fitted to the ordinary uses of man, it is this:--that all meditation is worthless, unless it prompt to action; that it is not for man to stand shillyshallying amid the conflicting inva­ sions of surrounding impulses; that in the earliest instant of conviction, the roused man must strike, and, if possible, with pre­ cision and the force of the lightning-bolt.

The parallel is striking and the irony of Pierre's impulsive action is even more worth noting. Hamlet vows

Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, 120

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there; And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain Unmixed with baser matter; yes by heaven (I,v,98-104).

But he later debates with himself whether or not action should be taken at all. Although told that the "serpent that did sting thy father's life/ Now wears his crown” (I,v,38-39),

Hamlet is unwilling to accept only the word of the ghost whom he suspects could be a devil, so he devises the plan for the play in the king's presence.

Pierre functions quite differently. The plots seem similar enough, but the courses of action taken are almost opposite. Like Hamlet, Pierre spurns all outside influence including Lucy, but he does not exclude the charms and

"sisterly" influence of Isabel. As a result, there is little despair in Hamlet's dying voice, "Horatio, I am dead,/Thou livest; report me and my cause aright/To the unsatisfied"

(V,ii,326-328), while Pierre feels duped. Pierre blames the

Fates; Hamlet blames nothing but the frailty of mankind.

The difference in the two is in their essentially intellectual understandings of the world and how it functions. E.M.W.

Tillyard in The Elizabethan World Picture discusses the role of Fate and Free Will as Hamlet understands it. 121

It is undoubted that the stars sway the mind to certain states by acting on our physical predisposi­ tions. If a man is weak in will and naturally chole­ ric, for instance, the stars may greatly influence him. Such a man may forget that reason should rule the passions and, prompted by stellar influence, may give way to them. In this he becomes near the beasts, "over all which, celestial bodies, as instru­ ments and executioners_of God’s providence, have absolute dominion." /from Raleigh's History of the World/ But over the immortal part of man the stars have no necessary sway. "Fate will be over come, if thou resist it; if thou neglect, it conquereth." and there are things to counter the star’s influence, both in nature and in art.

In Elizabethan literature there is great wealth of references to all possible ways of thinking about . the stars, from our being merely the stars’tennis- balls to our faults being not in the stars but in ourselves. But the prevalence of the doctrine that our wills are our own and that the stars' influence can be resisted may not be sufficiently recognised, the typical Elizabethan habit of mind being too often taken to be one of desperate recognition of an ineluctable fate.^-42

Hamlet follows the directives of fate. He deals with the problem as it is presented to him. When he debates, "To be or not to be . . ." he is involved in questioning which shall be his course. Shall he defy the fates and pursue no vengeance, or shall he let the stars rule him? He chooses the latter and recognizes in the end that the choice was his. On the other hand, after blindly accepting Isabel's

1-42 e.M.W. Tillyard. The Elizabethan World Picture. New York: Random House, pp. 57-58. 122

(whom he refers to as devil, bad angel, etc. on several occasions) story because of presentiment, Pierre settles on a course of action for which he soon loses his enthusiasm.

It is through Hamlet’s exercise of madness that we discover his wisdom and nobility. It is through Pierre’s attempted exercise of moral wisdom that we recognize the inner truth of his soul and his madness:

All his Faith-born, enthusiastic, high-wrought, stoic, and philosophic defences, were now beaten down by this sudden storm of nature in his soul. For there is no faith, and no stoicism, and no philo-.c sophy, that a mortal man can possibly evoke, which will stand the final test of a real impassioned onset of Life and Passion upon him. Then all the fair philosophic or Faith-phantoms that he raised from the mist, slide away and disappear as ghosts at cock-crow. For Faith and philosophy are air, but events are brass. Amidst his gray philosophi- sings, Life breaks upon a man like a morning. While this mood was on him, Pierre cursed himself for a heartless villain and an idiot fool;-- heartless villain, as the murderer of his mother-- idiot fool, because he had thrown away all his felicity; because he had himself as it were, resigned his noble birthright to a cunning kinsman for a mess of pottage, which now proved all but ashes in his mouth (p. 289).

The similarity that Pierre had seen previous to his encounter with Isabel, as well as after she reveals her identity, between him and Hamlet is at most circumstantial and con­ sciously contrived. Although unaware of its more sublime meaning as a youth, he enjoys the story immensely. Similar 123

in nature is Pierre's new-found understanding of Hamlet.

It is a philosophical correspondence to his situation and he therefore concludes that he is simply the modern actor of a time-worn script:

Pierre had always been an admiring reader of Hamlet; but neither his age nor his- mental experience thus far, had qualified him either to catch initiating glimpses into the hopeless gloom of its interior meaning, or to draw from the general story those superficial and purely incidental lessons wherein the painstaking moralist so complacently expatiates.

By the light of that gloom, Pierre now turned over the soul of Hamlet in his hand. He knew not-- at least, felt not--then, that Hamlet, though a thing of life, was, after all, but a thing of breath, evoked by the wanton magic of a creative hand. . . .

Judge ye, then, ye Judicious, the mood of Pierre, so far as the passage in Hamlet touched him (pp. 169- 170).

At this stage Pierre is frenzied, and Melville’s style is similarly distraught. Whether we consider this an artistic flaw or helpful symbolism, it should be seen that "in spite of all the wildness and incoherence, Melville Jj-sJ still grappling closely in Pierre with Shakespeare’s contraries.

. . . he /is/ still translating Shakespeare into his own language."14* It is these Shakespearean contraries that

Pierre recognizes in Hamlet’s and his world and is therefore

142* Matthiessen, p. 477. 124

convinced in the matter of his identification with Shakes­

peare’s tragic hero. Pierre extracts the lessons of Hamlet

and presumes a quick application:

Dante had made him fierce, and Hamlet had insinuated that there was none to strike. . . . Hamlet taunted him with faltering in the fight. . . . Ah! Easy for man to think like a hero; but hard for man to act like one. . . . Well may'st thou distrust thyself, and curse thyself, and tear they Hamlet and thy Hell! Oh! fool, blind fool, and a million times an ass! Go, go, thou poor and feeble one! High deeds are not for such blind grubs as thou! Quit Isabel, and go to Lucy! Beg humble pardon of thy mother, and hereafter be a more obedient and good boy to her, Pierre--Pierre, Pierre,--infatuate! . . . Now indeed did all the fiery floods in the Inferno, and all the rolling gloom in Hamlet suffocate him at once in flame and smoke. The cheeks of his soul collapsed in him; he dashed himself in blind fury and swift madness against the wall, and fell dabbling in the vomit of his loathed identity (pp. 170-171).

Thus, it is seen that Pierre openly accepts the role and

identity of Hamlet as his own and is abhorred by the prob­

ability of his end. The universality of the circumstances

helps to establish Melville's theme of the universality of

the human condition, but it also serves to show that through

different methods, differing results may be gained. And,

it is through the results that we differentiate the fool

from the hero. Even though Pierre accepts Hamlet's lot on

the surface, he cannot deal with its most encompassing de­ mands. Hamlet survives his task with morality intact because 125

he maintained his faith. Pierre fails and comes to think

of himself as the only reality and sole source of the ethical

because his faith is incapable of supporting Hamlet’s chal­

lenge.

The last tragic realization of all is that the mind in the noble pursuit of truth comes only to a true sense of itself as the only reality, and that reality is the principle of destruction. . . . The element of doubt which he_found in Hamlet, Melville pushed to the ultimate /in Pierre/.143

The progression of this analogy moves throughout the

entire book and is ironic in the sense that Pierre moves

from decisive wisdom to despairing madness whereas Hamlet moves from madness (feigned or otherwise) to ethical wisdom

and heroic forgiveness. The roundabout logic of Hamlet’s

early debates with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as well as

those with Polonius are characteristic of the final stages of Pierre's character in the book. A sample of the wild dialogue can be gathered from the scene where Lucy’s easel is delivered to Pierre’s quarters:

"But something seems strangely wanting here. Ay, now I see, I see it:--Villain!--the vines! Thou hast torn the green heart-strings! Thou hast but left the cold skeleton of the sweet arbour wherein she once nestled! Thou besotted, heartless hind and fiend, dost thou so much as dream in thy shri­ velled liver of the eternal mischief thou hast done?

143 Sedgwick, p. 172. 126

Restore thou the green vines! untrample them, thou accursed!--Oh my God, my God, trampled vines pounded and crushed in all fibers, how can they live over again, even though they be replanted! Curse thee, thou!--Nay, nay,” he added moodily--”I was but wandering to myself” (p. 318).

And a little later in the same sequence, the madness of

Hamlet’s fishmonger speech to Polonius seems equaled by Pierre

Millthrope summoning a loud, merry voice, advanced toward Pierre, and, tapping his shoulder, cried, ’’Wake up, wake up, my boy!--He says he is prepaid, but no objection to more.” "Prepaid;—what's that? Go, go, and jabber to apes!" "A curious young gentleman, is he not?" said Millthrope lightly to the porter.--"Look you, my boy, I’ll repeat: He says he’s prepaid, but no objection to more." "Ah?--take that then," said Pierre, vacantly putting something into the porter’s hand. "And what shall I do with this, sir?" said the porter, staring. "Drink a health; but not mine; that were mockery!" "With a key, sir? This is a key you gave me." "Ah!--well, you at least shall not have the thing that unlocks me. Give me the key, and take this." "Ay, ay!--here’s the chink! Thank’ee, sir, thank'ee. This’ll drink. I ain't called a porter for nothing; Stout's the word; 2151 is my number; any jobs, call on me." "Do you ever cart a coffin, my man? said Pierre (p. 319).

The irony of the parallel becomes fully realized with

Pierre's last words. Pierre calls for death and surrenders his life willingly to a vial of poison. Pierre believes that "now life is death and death is life" and that he must escape the trumped-up world: 127

"In thy breasts, life for infants lodgeth not, but death-milk for thee and mei—The drug!"

Hamlet, unlike Pierre, clings desperately to life and only comes to his end through treachery and deceit. He too dies of poison, but the fatal fluid enters his body unknown to himself. There is only heroism in Hamlet's death whereas there is only disgust and cowardice in Pierre's death.

Hamlet hopes that the truth of his story will survive into the remotest generations while Pierre suggests that the poison is for both him and Isabel.

Pierre's immaturity as a tragic hero differentiates him not only from Hamlet but from Romeo. Pierre sees himself at the end as "the fool of Truth, the fool of Virtue, the fool of Fate," in something of the same helpless light as Romeo did midway through the play. But Pierre has no growth into Romeo's final recognition of the lasting values of love. He believes himself doomed to hell both in this world and the next, and kills himself in reckless despair.144

Pierre as Galahad

Pierre's awareness of himself as the noble brother and protector of virtue and fair play can hardly be disputed.

The entire plot revolves on this devotion to gallantry, and without it none of the metaphysical questions Pierre asks would have occured to him. Pierre's fall from the role of protector of the chivalric code to one which questions the very existence of such a code might be likened to the fall

144 Matthiessen, p. 470 128

that Lancelot experienced because of Guinevere. Just as

Lancelot, and for that matter, Shakespeare's Antony, trade the esteem of the public for the devotion to the private world, Pierre sacrifices all of the worldly for what he thinks is the spiritual. When Pierre later doubts the validity of his choice and despairs, he becomes a man without a country, family, lover, or God; "with Pierre's fall comes a complete disillusionment with the purity and integrity of the Arcadian existence."145

That Saddle-Meadows was Pierre's Arcadia is without question, but it is worth noting here that Pierre is quite aware of his role as Galahad. Although most critics have dealt primarily with Pierre's most vibrant scenes which occur in the later stages of the book, few have pointed out the significant part that the early chapters play in "setting­ up" the latter action. For instance, in the case of Pierre's role-playing as knight-errant, one can see that Melville has given much to substantiate such a conclusion in the earliest chapters. The first burst of dialogue in the book is wholly reminiscent of that to be found in the legends of Arthur's days:

145 Moorman, p. 26. 129

As heart rings to heart those voices rang, and for a moment, in the bright hush of the morning, the two stood silently but ardently eying each other, beholding mutual reflections of a boundless admira­ tion and love. "Nothing but Pierre," laughed the youth, at last; "thou hast forgotten to bid me good-morning" "That would be little. Good-mornings, good-evenings, good days, weeks, months, and years to thee, Pierre;-- bright Pierre!--Pierre!"

"Tell me, why should ye youths ever show so sweet an expertness in turning all trifles of ours into trophies of yours?" "I know not how that is, but ever was it our fashion to do." And shaking the casement shrub, he dislodged the flower, and conspicuously fastened it in his bosom.—"I must away now, Lucy; see! under these colors I march." "Bravissimo! oh, my only recruit!" (p. 4).

Along with many other lines similar in tone and vocabulary,

the first five chapters abound with references to the medieval past. Pierre has the advantage of living in the country but also makes annual visits to the city

where naturally mingling in a large and polished society, Pierre had insensibly formed himself in the earlier graces of life, without enfeebling the vigour derived from a martial race, and fostered in the country’s clarion air (p. 6).

Because of the importance placed upon aristocracy, democracy is held in suspicion by the young man. It breeds only dis­ content and ill-thinking people who live in cities where they congregate and plot against virtue. Only very select segments of the city and its people are to be trusted. 130

Pierre believes that

the democratic element operates as a subtile acid among us; forever producing new things by corroding the old (p. 9).

Pierre's world thrives on the old. The past is entirely

a part of the present and for him a Glendinning can never

be separate from his lineage, Pierre is surrounded by

the popular names of its finest features appealed to the proudest patriotic and family associations of the historic line of Glendinning. On the meadows which sloped away from the shaded rear of the manorial mansion . . . the paternal great-grandfather of Pierre, had sat unhorsed on his saddle in the grass, with his dying voice, still cheering his men in the fray. This was Saddle-Meadows, a name likewise extended to the mansion and the village (pp. 5-6).

Pierre's education starts early and lasts throughout the book, but his education in gentility is almost engrained in him by strict demands to adhere to the family maxims. Since

Pierre's father is the model for gentility to the young boy, the irony of Pierre's fall from social esteem is even more striking. Recall that Pierre was instructed to the importance of the equation of gentility with Christianity. The result is therefore predictable:

Thus in Pierre was the complete polished steel of the gentleman, girded with Religion's silken sash; and his great-grandfather's soldierly fate had taught him that the generous sash should, in the last bitter trial, furnish its wearer with Glory's shroud (p. 7).

Ironically, Pierre at the last hour is seen without the true 131

Silken sash of faith and falls miserably. He dies, therefore,

not the noble and honorable death of a medieval knight, but

that of a lunatic rogue.

While yet a youth, Pierre is instructed carefully by his

mother. With great power, she imprints on the whole being

of Pierre the importance of living up to the image of his

father's masculinity and gentlemanliness. She tends to

the slight things which added up in their sum to the mark of

a polished gentleman. She guides his appetite "for a thor­

oughly developed gentleman is always robust and healthy; and

Robustness and Health are great trencher-men" (p. 17). While

nurturing him on boxing, or boating, or fencing, or some

other gymnastical feat, Mary Glendinning always is careful to

temper it with a constant awareness of the growth of the mind as well.

Not in vain had he spent long summer afternoons in the deep recesses of his father's fastidiously picked and decorous library; where the Spenserian nymphs had early led him into many a maze of all- bewildering beauty (p. 6).

Mrs. Glendinning, seemingly following the advice of Longinus'

idea that "the great natures of the men of old there are borne in upon the souls of those who emulate them," constantly guides Pierre by demanding his close acquaintance with the

"great works" and the "great men." For example, after being 132

overly curt with the butler, Dates, Mary reprimands Pierre

saying:

"Don’t be a milk-sop, Pierre! . . . Never rave, Pierre; and never rant. Your father never did either; nor is it written of Socrates; and both were very wise men. Your father was profoundly in love--that I know to my certain knowledge--but I never heard him rant about it. He was always exceed­ ingly gentlemanly: and gentlemen never rant. Milk­ sops and Muggletonians rant, but gentlemen never (p. 19)

Pierre’s attitude toward the menials is close to that which is commonly associated with feudal lords. In the early references to Dates and the coach driver and stable master,

Christopher, it is clear that Pierre uses his position as heir-apparent and prince of the manor:

After directing the unruffled Dates, to swing out, horizontally into a particular light, a fine joyous painting, in the good-fellow Flemish style . . . and furthermore after darting from where he sat a few invigorating glances over the river-meadows to the blue mountains beyond; Pierre made a masonic sort of mysterious motion to the excellent Dates, who in automation obedience thereto, brought from a certain agreeable little side-stand, a very prominent-looking cold pasty (p. 17).

After supping on squab under glass, as the same scene contin­ ues, Pierre gets up slowly and makes his way out into the courtyard where Christopher has been kept waiting and is very impatient. The fact that no dialogue takes place between them and that Pierre totally disregards "old" Chris­ topher indicates Pierre's conscious awareness of his role in 133

the feudal system that is the rule of Saddle-Meadows. It might also be of some significance to mention that Pierre has ordered that the old phaeton, a chariot-like vehicle, be readied for his use. Melville adds that the phaeton is six generations old and that it bears the Glendinning coat of arms to "always remind /Pierra/ who it was that first rode in it" (p. 19). This flair for the heroic that excites

Pierre while riding in the historic chariot of his ancestors is the same which intrigues him into fantasies about the heroic possibilities of the present. The narrator casts light upon the importance of this saying,

In midland counties of England they boast of old oaken dining-halls where three hundred men-at-arms could exercise of a rainy afternoon, in the reign of the Plantagenets. But our lords, the Patroons, appeal not to the past, but they point to the present (p. 11).

The concentration upon manifesting the adventure of the past upon the present time is for Pierre a full-time job:

/Natura/ blew her wind-clarion from the blue hills, and Pierre neighed out lyrical thoughts, as at the trumpet-blast, a war-horse paws himself into a lyric of foam. She whispered through her deep groves whispers of love, ran through Pierre’s thought-veins, musical as water over pebbles. She lifted her spangled crest of a thickly starred night, and forth at that glimpse of their divine Captain and Lord, ten thousand mailed thoughts of heroicness started up in Pierre’s soul, and glared round for some insulted good cause to defend (p. 14). 134

Heroism, amplified to such extremes, causes Pierre to con­

centrate upon his own contributions to the family honor.

With the knowledge that he is "a double revolutionary descent”

and that "on both sides he sprung from heroes" (p. 20),

Pierre's fondest wish is for a sister whom he can romanti­

cally protect and heroically rescue:

"Oh, had my father but had a daughter!" cried Pierre; someone whom I might love, and protect, and fight for, if need be. It must be a glorious thing to engage in a mortal quarrel on a sweet sister's behalf! How, of all things, would to heaven, I had a sister!" (P. 7).

Surrounded by his queenly "pedestailed mother" (p. 5); his

"betrothed" Lucy; the remnants of his noble great-grandfather

and grandfather glory-days; traces of monarchy, aristocracy,

and feudalism; the courtly gentlemanliness of his father;

Saddle-Meadows with all of its historic trappings; and, the

uncontrollable "vaingloriousness of his youthful soul" (p. 8),

Pierre consciously and unswervingly accepts the challenge

that Isabel presents to him. She represents his one chance

to add to the Glendinning merit. It is his first chance,

and possibly his only one ever, to enact the Galahadic role

of knightly rescuer. His ego and his energy drive him to considering the problem of Isabel as a personal challenge.

Genuine as his intentions may have been to redeem Isabel 135

from the shame of the world, Pierre's desire to succeed

heroically is the primary force which moves him to pursuing

the girl's honor. Mary Dichmann, one of the few critics to

comment on this aspect of Pierre, believes that "it is evident

that Pierre is reminiscent not so much of Adam as of Galahad, the spotless knight born into a sin-stained world."146

Pierre as Christ

Pierre's coincidental identification with Christ the

savior is directly related to his quest for heroism and

gallantry. The role of Christ develops from Pierre's con­

scious rejection of the world in favor of spiritual idealism.

As Galahad, Pierre surrounds himself with the blessings of

society. But, once those social ideals are shown to be

faulty, the idealistic Galahad must reject his worldly ambi­

tions and become a crusader for God instead. Two prophetic

signs are given Pierre which serve to indicate the end of

the Galahad role. The first occurs when he is unable to

swear that he will tell all and have no secrets from Lucy;

and the second when he is unable to be truthful with his mother when she asks him why he has acted so strangely after the indident at the Pennies' sewing-bee. The signal is clear.

The honest, truth-telling Galahad deals only in worldly

146 Dichmann, p. 706 136

affairs and has to alter himself to suit the problems of

the spirit.

The allegory that becomes the Christ-role for Pierre begins rather baguely with the entrance of the swift-footed messenger:

"I have a letter for Pierre Glendinning," said the stranger, "and I beliebe this is he." At the same moment, a letter was drawn forth, and sought his hand. "For Mei" exclaimed Pierre, faintly, starting at the strangeness of the encounter?—methinks this is an odd time and place to deliver your mail?—who are you?—Stay! But without waiting an answer, the messenger had already turned about, and was re-crossing the road (p. 61).

The announcement is obviously unexpected and the deliveryman finds Pierre in near total darkness in a relatively odd place for such a task. The delivery is made and the messenger does not respond to Pierre's kingly command to "Stay!"

The messenger seems almost to dissolve into the night, to disappear. Thus, a parallel is made between the angel

Gabriel's annunciation of Christ's coming and the present scene in which Pierre is involved. The divine mission is taken up again a few lines later when Pierre finds himself torn between the good and bad angels. The similarity builds when one reflects on the story of Christ's temptation by the devil in the desert. Shall he pursue the straight course 137

of Truth at whatever cost or shall he resist spiritual idealism and submit to the temptations of the wordly order?

Pierre now seemed distinctly to feel two antagonistic agencies within him; one of which was just struggling into his consciousness, and each of which was striving for the mastery; and between whose respective final ascendencies, he thought he could perceive, though but shadowly, that he himself was to be the only umpire. One bade him finish the selfish destruction of the note; for in some dark way the reading of it would irretrievably entangle his fate. The other bade him dismiss all misgivings; not because there was no possible ground for them, but because to dismiss them was the manlier part, never mind what might betide. . . . Then, at the blast of his noble heart, the bad angel shrunk up into nothingness; and the good one defined itself clearer and more clear, and came nigher and more nigh to him, smiling sadly but benig- nantly (p. 63).

After having read the letter, Pierre suffers the pangs of conscience that Christ is characterized as having experienced while waiting his fate in the Garden of Olives:

"If this night, which now wraps my soul, be genuine as that which now wraps this half of the world; then Fate, I have a choice quarrel with thee. Thou are a palterer and a cheat; thou hast lured me on through gay gardens to a gulf. Oh! falsely guided in the days of my Joy, am I now truly led in this night of my grief?—I will be a raver, and none shall stay me! I will life my hand in fury, for am I not struck? I will be bitter in my breath, for is not this cup of gall? . . . Ah! forgive me, ye heavens, for my ignorant ravings, and accept this my vow,--Here I swear myself Isabel’s" (pp. 65-66).

The terror of the moment of commitment passed and the despair turned to strength in faith, Pierre accepts what he thinks 138

is the kiss of fate willingly:

"God demands me for thy comforter; and comfort thee, stand by thee, and fight for thee, will thy leapingly- acknowledging brother, whom thy own father named Pierre” (p. 66).

Striking in these three short lines is the amalgamation of the names: ”God," "brother,” and "father." The religious allegory is too rich to be unintentional or meaningless.

Just as Christ, the son, came to redeem the children of God;

Pierre willingly embarks on the holy quest to save Isabel from the debauched world. Just as Christ leaves his Church to Peter, the rock, in order to protect the newly redeemed race of men, Pierre, the rock, takes up Christ’s work and puts into motion the teachings of God, the Son, in a newly corrupted world.

Pierre's march to Calvary is as dismal as that of

Christ. It is difficult for him to isolate himself from the world by dissociating himself from all that is human because of his glorious background. Yet, while his faith and resolve are still high, Pierre recognizes:

"Oh, now methinks I a little see why of old the men of Truth went barefoot, girded with a rope, and even moving under mournfulness as underneath a canopy. I remember now those first wise words, wherewith our Saviour Christ first spoke in his first speech to men: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, and blessed they that mourn"’ (p. 91). 139

The humanness of Pierre plagues him and he is constantly bothered by doubt. Although he wants to help Isabel, he cannot help wondering if all that he and Isabel know or believe is true. The proof is vague, yet it is also con­ vincing. As the doldrums of doubt roll in and Pierre’s faith in his project is tested, he experiences an almost endless stream of personal statements of commitment to the cause.

He was almost superhumanly prepared to make a sac­ rifice of all objects dearest to him, and cut himself away from his last hopes of common happiness, should they cross his grand enthusiast resolution. . . . Impregnations from high enthusiasms he had received. . . Thus, in the Enthusiast to Duty, the heaven-begotten Christ is born; and will not own a mortal parent, and spurns and rends all mortal bonds (p. 106).

Pierre, however, in the earliest stages of his campaign for virtue relied too on the helping grace of heaven. Bolstered by faith in his cause and heaven he now prays,

May heaven new-string my soul, and confirm me in the Christ-like feeling I first felt. May I, in all my least shapeful thoughts, still square myself by the inflexible rule of holy right. Let no unmanly, mean temptation cross my path this day; let no base stone lie in it. This day I will forsake the censuses of men, and seek the suffrages of the god-like popu­ lation of the trees, which now seem to me a nobler race than man. . . . Guide me, gird me, guard me, this day, ye sovereign powers (pp. 106-107)!

Recognizing only intermittently that his mission is a divine one which requires a noble brand of faith, Pierre goes about 140

the work of a savior boldly and with much pride. In the scene with the Terror Stone, Pierre indirectly admits to being suspicious of his ability to see the task through to its proper conclusion. In a test of the fates and God,

Pierre tempts the balancing rock to fall and crush him if he is incapable of his divine mission:

"If the miseries of the undisclosable things in me, shall ever unhorse me from my manhood’s seat; if to vow myself all Virtue's and all Truth's, be but to make a trembling, distrusted slave of me; if Life is to prove a burden I cannot bear without ignominious cringings; if indeed our actions are : all fore-ordained, and we are Russian serfs to Fate; if invisible devils do titter at us when we mostly nobly strive; if Life be a cheating dream, and virtue as unmeaning and unsequelled with any blessing as the midnight mirth of wine; if by sacrificing myself for Duty's sake, my own mother re-sacrifices me; if Duty's self be but a bugbear, and all things are allowable and unpunishable to man;--then do thou, Mute Massiveness, fall on me” (p. 134)!

Assured in the validity of the task and in his ability to carry out its demands, Pierre is also pridefully aware of the rewards he will receive from the Heavenly Father for his sacrifice.

"Isabel,” cried Pierre, "I stand the sweet penance in my father's stead, thou, in thy mother's. By our earthly acts we shall redeemingly bless both their eternal lots; we will love with the pure and perfect love of angel to an angel. If ever I fall from thee, dear Isabel, may Pierre fall from himself; fall back forever into vacant nothingness and night" (p. 154)! 141

It is at this point in Pierre’s development that the role of Christ overtakes him and he can no longer discrimi­ nate clearly the stuff of clay from that of heaven. In fact,

”in the end, only the sense of his own divinity and of the righteousness of self remains.”147 pierre's pride in himself and his ability to succeed becomes overbalanced against the faith that was the main substance of his first few speeches after his commitment to Isabel. As Battenfeld has put it, ”by abandoning his judgment, he destroys himself."^-48 narrator cautions us of this fact:

For it is only the miraculous vanity of man which ever persuades him, that even for the most richly gifted mind, there ever arrives an earthly period, where it can truly say to itself, I have come to the Ultimate of Human Speculative Knowledge . . . (p. 167).

With full confidence that he is the tool of Heaven and that he will succeed, Pierre pushes forth. Prior to his final scene with Falsgrave, where he denounces the Church and says that he’ll have to seek his counsel directly from God, Pierre allegorically celebrates the sacrament of the Eucharist:

"I am very hungry; I have forgotten to eat since breakfast; and now thou shalt bring me bread and a

147 Watkins, p. 48.

148 David H. Battenfeld. _I Seek for Truth: A Comparative Study of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and Pierre. Diss. Stanford, 1958, p. 84. 142

cup of water. . . . to-night thou and I must sup together, Isabel; for as we may henceforth live together, let us begin forthwith to eat together. . . . Give me the cup£ hand it me with thine own hand. So;--Isabel, my heart and soul are now full of deepest reverence; yet I do dare to call this the real sacrament of the supper.—Eat with me" (pp. 160-62).

Following this last of suppers before Pierre’s "Final Reso­ lution" the denial speech by Falsgrave occurs. When the minister utters, "incidental question, I choose to have no answer for" (p. 163), he betrays his divinely instituted profession and acts the part of Judas in the allegory. Pierre, from this point onward, moves as a singular orb. He moves, also, slowly away from the faith he has had earlier in the divine to a level of despair that questions the very exis­ tence of a divine power. When he remarks to Falsgrave that he’d have to take his case to a higher court, he is blas­ phemously presuming that he has the power to do what he chooses to do. When he compromises his first intention by trying to deceive the world, he separates himself from the model of

Christ.

"Pierre /could no_t/ surrender the notion of his own perfection; as each facet of his revolving world shows that world in some new way short of what he asks it to be, he can only turn to himself for an example of all that is right and good."1^

149 Stone, p. 198. 143

It is not that Pierre attempts to be Christ-like, but because he thinks that he’s doing it independent of any divine power he is doomed to failure. Although in choosing between

’’Lucy or God,” Pierre is genuinely committing an act of sacrificial virtue, it is the irrational belief that he can achieve it alone that is devastating. Later, when Lucy plans to rejoin Pierre in New York, he is made to feel deified by the extolments of his new follower. Believing that Pierre is performing Christ's mission, Lucy says,

"But now I shall be wafted far upward from that; shall soar up to thee, where thou sittest in thine own calm, sublime heaven of heroism. Oh seek not to dissuade me, Pierre. Wouldst thou slay me, and slay me a million times more? and never have done with murdering me? I must come! I must come! God Himself cannot stay me, for it is He that commands me. . . . Thou art my mother and my brothers, and all the world, and all heaven, and all the universe to me—thou art my Pierre" (pp. 310-311).

Steeped in misanthropy by the end of the book, Pierre denounces the worlds of man and God, believing that "now am I hate-shod!" (p. 357). He moves to his crucifixion as one of the condemned thieves instead of the triumphant Christ.

Pierre will sink the world in order to seek and publish The Truth for mankind. In the very instru­ ment with which he must search, the quester is fore­ doomed: he can only search with the being that is natural man, and natural man cannot reach ideality 144

150 with nonidealxty.

He angrily nails his book to the desk in his apartment and

commits himself to "skate to his acquittal!" on two stolen pistols:

"Here, on this vile counter, over which the coiner thought to pass it to the world, here will I nail it fast, for a detected cheat! And thus nailed fast now, do I spit upon it, and so get the start of the wise world's worst abuse of it! Now I go out to meet my fate, walking toward me in the street" (p. 357).

"Pierre's soul struggles to fulfill itself—struggles to assume manhood and independence. But he fails to complete the book which is at once the symbol and simulacrum of his soul."Hl Just before leaving his rooms he sees the two girls and positions himself between them and allegorically re-enacts an ironic Eucharist and the tragedy of Golgotha hill:

"Dead embers of departed fires lie by thee, thou pale girl; with dead embers thou seekest to relume the flame of all extinguished love! Waste not so that bread; eat it—in bitterness!" He turned, and entered the corridor, and then, with outstretched arms, paused between the two outer doors of Isabel and Lucy. 7,'For ye two, my most undiluted prayer is now, that from your here unseen and,frozen chairs ye may never stir alive;—the fool of Truth, the fool of Virtue, the fool of Fate, now quits ye forever!" (p. 358).

150 Stern, P« 176. 151 Watkins, p. 149 145

As Pierre winds his way through the crowded streets, it is

as if they were lined for the announced execution of the

thrice-times Fool. As he stalks under the weight of his

hatred he sees Glen Stanly, the symbol to him of all that is

wordly. In the midst of buildings which symbolize to him the

justice of the world that has forgotten him he meets his

enemy:

Just as he gained a large, open triangular space, built round with the stateliest public erec­ tions; --the very prescenium of the town; he saw Glen . . . (p. 359).

With the act of damnation complete and the Christ-image wholly played out to the extreme of having reached its

antithesis, Pierre writes his own mortal and moral epitaph:

"Away!--Good Angel and Bad Angel both!--For Pierre is neuter now"(p. 360)! If there is moral tragedy involved in this book, it is necessarily connected to Pierre’s inability to accept the fact that he cannot be Christ. In his attempt to act the role of Christ, he loses sight of who he really is.

Tnere can be little question of the mistakeness of the extreme position to which Pierre’s reaction has driven him. All joy and all hope seem blotted out forever. Yet neither the world nor his own situation is in reality so unrelievedly dark as it appears. Disabused as he is, he is still the victim of illusion. Recent events have not so much widened his field of vision as shifted its center, and in seeing the new he has lost sight 146

of the old."152

Richard Chase concurs somewhat, but allows that Pierre may

have become inflexibly convinced in his subconscious of the

validity of the role he has merely begun acting out. Chase

concludes,

If Pierre does not grasp the full meaning of Christ, he is nevertheless a naive and unconscious Christ himself. An ’earnest loving youth,' he had exper­ ienced an 'intense self-absorption into the greatest real miracle of all religions, the Sermon on the Mount.' The young hero dies a victim of the faulty ways of This World, and dying, he is attended by his Mary and his Mary Magdalene.153

What Pierre has not learned, either consciously or uncon­

sciously, is that "one must not reject Christ because he cannot be Christ. That is the error of Pierre."154

Pierre as Senuous Lover

A fourth role that Pierre chooses to enact is that of

lover. It is doubtful that a clear line of comparison could be drawn between him and characters as Don Quixote, Tom

Jones, or Don Juan because the degree to which the role is portrayed and the nature of the circumstances are in constant

152 Bowen, p. 168.

153 Chase, p. 127.

154 Watkins, p. 51. 147

flux throughout. The one unifying factor in all of his

relationships is that he is always characterized as being passionate. That he is the picaro of a sentimental and ser­

ious picaresque novel is decreasingly demonstrable as the book progresses; but as the central figure, Pierre, shotáso«¡o little development that one cannot help but recognize the picaresque hero qualities in his pastoral environment and his carefree rascality as being directly or indirectly a part of all that he does.

The hero represents a composite, timeless man, and the communities of which he is a part, a composite of mankind’s social, moral, and religious experience. . . . Because he is an absolute among absolutes, he can show no growth and cannot act with expedient moderation. H5

If there is any movement at all, it is digressive. The coy and jovial youth of Pierre in the early stages of the book, which is comparable to that of Fielding’s character, slowly erodes into the terror and suffocation by impending doom such as that which is characteristic of Doctor Faustus.

Since Pierre has been instructed in the rules of genti­ lity he follows the general guides of The Art of Courtly Love perhaps, or some such book of etiquette. Yet, he has unboun­ ded passion with which he must deal. As he gradually spurns

155 Dichmann, p. 713. 148

social propriety, his passions become more and more dominant.

And, "once Pierre has thrown convention overboard, he has no religious dogma /which has been primarily social./ to support him.” As Pierre disavows the social code, religion, and finally God, he simultaneously becomes increasingly incapable of love. In his two final acts of life he is the agent of the antithesis of love, hate. Once faith is removed, love can no longer survive. Pierre, thus, kills Glen Stanly and commits suicide. Since it is passion which is the visible element in Pierre's behavior as he acts out his various roles as lover, it is this element from which the reader must take his cue to forthcoming changes in Pierre’s role-playing.

Melville positions the discussion of the definition of love immediately after all of the important Glendinning heritage has been explained. Lucy, the ideal betrothed, is described as a woman "not entirely of this earth” (p. 24), just prior to the section; and, Isabel's scream of terror and mystical face follow in the first pages of the very next chapter. This provides an adequate literal and sym­ bolic link from the three women of most importance to Pierre.

It also emphasizes that love cannot be altered or changed to

156 Matthiessen, pp. 469-470. 149

suit a mortal being. Love is an immutable truth which must

be accepted in its whole, yet varying, form. Reminiscent

of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, Chapter thirteen,

Melville writes:

Love was first begot by Mirth and Peace, in Eden, when the world was young. The man oppressed with cares, he cannot love; the man of gloom finds not the god. So, as youth, for the most part, has no cares, and knows no gloom, therefore, ever since time did begin, youth belongs to love. Love may end in grief and age, and pain and need, and all other modes of human mournfulness; but love begins in joy. Love’s first sigh is never breathed, till after Love hath laughed. Love laughs first, and then sighs after. Love has not hands, but cymbals; Love's mouth is chamberedlike a bugle, and the instinctive breathings of his life breathe jubilee notes of joy.

The eye is Love's own magic glass, where all things that are not of earth, glide in supernatural light. . . . Love's eyes are holy things; therein the mysteries of life are lodged; looking in each other's eyes, lovers see the ultimate secret of the worlds; and with thrills eternally untranslatable, feel that Love is god of all. Man and woman who has never loved, nor once looked deep down into their own lover's eyes, they know not the sweetest and the loftiest religion of this earth. Love is both Creator's and Saviour's gospel to mankind . . . (pp. 33-34).

With the criteria set down»the story is ready to take on its fullest meaning. Pierre can now be observed and judged according to the religion of love. It is interesting, too, to follow the line of this logic to its fullest development in order to recognize its deepest significance to Pierre.

Since love is religion and God is the source of all love, 150

then one who is without love is without religion and, there­ fore, without God. It follows, then, that as Pierre loses his faith in God, he loses his ability to love. Consequently, by watching the deterioration of Pierre's ability to love we can also recognize the deterioration of his faith in God.

There is no place in the book where Pierre is connected wîithk a wholly healthy love r

This reflects the effect that a morally stunted, deformed society has had on him. More importantly, deviation is accepted as the norm in the beginning of the book; and, ironically enough, it is that very society which is disturbed by the case of Delly Ulver and would have certainly casti­ gated Pierre had they known who Isabel really was. It is this norm of deceit that is the seedling when planted in

Pierre’s passionate and fertile mind that grows dispropor­ tionately and finally overwhelms him with ambiguousness and hate.

The first time Pierre speaks of love, he says, "in us love is profane, since it mortally reaches toward the heaven in ye" (p. 4)! The suggestion that love can be made to seem blasphemous is a tone-setting indication of Pierre's most innocent understandings of it. With little doubt, the 151

relationship between Mrs. Glendinning and Pierre is drawn to

attract attention because of its uniqueness. "It is signifi­

cant that in the book Pierre’s first kiss is implanted, not

on Lucy's cheek (though he had met her before breakfast),

but on his mother’s bosom." In describing this potential

Oedipal syndromeMelville carefully places words like "roman­

tic," "strangely," "translated," "sex," "playfulness,"

"strange licence," and "bred between them" in such rapidly

repeating order that one is peppered with inuendoes and

insinuations before he is ready to understand them fully.

This romantic filial love of Pierre seemed fully returned by the triumphant maternal pride of the widow, who in the clear-cut lineaments and noble air of her son, saw her own graces strangely trans­ lated into the opposite sex. There was a striking personal resemblance between them. ... In the playfulness of their unclouded love, and with that strange licence which a perfect confidence and mutual understanding at all points, had long bred between them, they were wont to call each other brother and sister (p. 5).

We are also told that Mary encourages "this youthful pre­ tention" (p. 5) and enjoys the notion of having a "train of infatuated suitors, little less younger than her own son Pierre" (pp. 4-5). Although not totally relevant to

Pierre’s role playing, this fact seems to cast light on

157 s. Foster Damon. "Pierre the Ambiguous," Hound and Horn, II (January-March 1929), 116. 152

the major source of Pierre’s understanding of what love is.

It was mentioned earlier that Pierre craves to have a sister

because he considers a sister the best potential source of

chivalry. Yet, when examining the speeches in that sequence,

one cannot help but notice the altogether strange and out-

of-place usage of the phrases "delicious a feeling," and "the

deliciousness of a wife, already lies in a sister":

He mourned that so delicious a feeling as fraternal love had been denied him. ... a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man; and it is first in point of occurrence; for the wife comes after. He who is sisterless, is as a bachelor before his time. For much that goes to make up the deliciousness of a wife, already lies in the sister (p. 7).

Pierre is molded by the world around him and the later roles

of love that he acts out are a direct product of his training.

His mother is the sole arbiter in matters of the fairer sex and

it is she that has approved the betrothal of Pierre to Lucy.

Lucy is perfect because Mary believes that "his little wife,

that is to be, will not estrange him from me; for she is docile" (p. 20). Through Mary’s pride Pierre’s strange love for her becomes manifest. It is possible that she enjoyed his manliness vicariously, but it is more probable that he satisfied a desire for narcistic involvement. Since her own vanity emphasized the great physical likeness between them, it is fully understandable why Pierre is held so pricelessly 153

close to her.

the selected homage of the noblest men, was what she felt to be her appropriate right. . . . Thus, though replenished through all her veins with the subtlest vanity, with the homage of Pierre alone was she content (pp. 15-16).

Although unnatural in its normal context, the actions and attitudes of Pierre toward his mother are natural develop­ ments of Pierre’s nurturing.

That nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which . . too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights . . . still further etherealized in the filial breast—was for Mary Glendinning, now not very far from her grand climacteric, miraculously revived in the courteous lover-like adoration of Pierre(p. 16). (Italics mine)

Pierre's love for Lucy coincides with the Arcadian descrip­ tions which adorn Saddle-Meadows and could be a model case for courtly love; however, in the following sequence it can be detected that Pierre thinks of this period of court­ ship and his role as suitor to be just another social game similar to the one that he and his mother are engaged in.

Notice that he says, "when we are married," in prefacing his statement. He doesn’t wish to shed the role of propriety now, but once he is safely out of the sight of those who require such nonsense he refuses to oblige:

"I was thinking, Lucy, of the sad state I am in. Not six months ago, I saw a poor affianced fellow, 154

an old comrade of mine, trudging along with his Lucy Tartan, a hillock of bundles under either arm; and I said to myself--There goes a sumpter, now; poor devil, he's a lover. . . . But look ye, Lucy, I am going to enter a formal declaration and protest before matters go further with us. When we are married, I am not to carry any bundles, unless in cases of real need; and what is more, when there are any of your young lady acquaintances in sight, I am not to be unnecessarily called upon to back up, and load for their particular edification” (p. 23).

Pierre’s endearment to Lucy is accidental and begins in the sylvan serenity of the country. It seems as though the stars have crossed the lovers’ paths purposely and yet with­ out their consultation:

The two Platonic particles, after roaming in quest of each other from the time of Saturn and Ops till now; they came together (p. 27).

Yet, the less than romantic arrangement has thrived for years until Pierre recognizes the physical loveliness of Lucy while she spends the summer months with her Aunt Llanyllyn:

And now, for some years past ... it was among the pure and soft incitements of the country that Pierre first had felt toward Lucy the dear passion which now made him wholly hers (p. 26).

As their immature love grows into its maturity, Pierre begins to suffer under the desires of his lustful passions for Lucy.

Then would Pierre burst forth in some screaming shout of joy; and the striped tigers of his chestnut eyes leaped in their lashed cages with a fierce delight. Lucy shrank from him in extreme love; for the extremest top of love, is Fear and Wonder (p. 35). 155

And then a little later we see Pierre's passions convert

him into the sensuous lover,

Now, prone on the grass he falls, with his attentive upward glance fixed on Lucy's eyes. "Thou art my heaven, Lucy; and here I lie thy shepherd-king, watching for new eye-stars to rise in thee. Ha! I see Venus' transit now; lo! a new planet there; and behind all, an infinite starry nebulousness, as if thy being were backgrounded by some spangled veil of mystery (p. 36).

Following in this sequence is a debate over what is the

proper province of love. What seems to be taking place here

is a moral debate between unified lovers and the vested moral

conscience in the Universe. The answer is given and the

temptation resolved, but the lesson is difficult to accept.

Both Lucy and Pierre have subscribed themselves to moral

temptation and they are frightened by it. Their whole world

seems changed. The early serenity of the chapter is metamor­ phosed into drab and sterile scenes.

"God help thee, and God help me, Lucy. I cannot think, that in this most mild and dulcet air, the invisible agencies are plotting treasons against our loves" (p. 37).

Lucy, not fully aware of the magnitude of the horror Pierre feels, innocently reacts:

"Up, my Pierre; let us up, and fly these hills, whence, I fear, too wide a prospect meets us. Fly we to the plain. See, thy steeds neigh for thee--they call thee--see, the clouds fly down toward the plain--lo, these hills now seem all desolate 156

to me, and the vale all verdure" (p. 38).

Upon returning to Lucy’s aunt's house, Pierre is requested

to get Lucy’s sketch pad from her bedroom. Entering the room he realizes that his desires for Lucy are not wholly pure and spiritual, but also animal and lustful. He is overcome by his fantasy as he looks at the "ruffled roll" which is probably Lucy’s penoir and longs to "unroll" it. The trance ends and he unapologetically dismisses it from his mind:

For one swift instant, he seemed to see in that one glance the two separate beds--the real one and the reflected one--and an unbidden, most miserable presentiment thereupon stole into him. But in one breath it came and went. . . . his eye now fell upon the spotless bed itself, and fastened on a snow-white roll that lay beside the pillow. Now he started; Lucy seemed coming in upon him; but no-- 'tis only the feet of one of her little slippers, just peeping into view from under the narrow nether curtains of the bed. Then again his glance fixed itself upon the slender, snow-white ruffled roll; and he stood as one enchanted. Never trembling scholar longed more to unroll the mystic vellum, than Pierre longed to unroll the sacred secrets of that snow-white, ruffled thing (p. 39).

Actually from this point onward, Pierre cannot hope to have the same attitudes toward Lucy as he has had previous to this sequence of events. Now he sees that Lucy’s naive and childlike love is too perfect for someone like him. His flair for gallantry enters as he’s sure that he can never be held responsible for his actions if he is to perpetuate 157

his relationship with Lucy any further. Now the idea of marriage to Lucy is for Pierre an absurdity of the highest caliber:

This to be my wife? I that but the other day weighed an hundred and fifty pounds of avoirdupois;--/ to wed this heavenly fleece? Methinks one husbandly embrace would break her airy zone, and she exhale upward to that heaven whence she hath hither come, condensed to mortal sight. It can not be; I am of heavy earth, and she of airy light. By heaven, but marriage is an impious thing (p. 58)!

"The trait which causes him to think of marriage as rape also causes him to proclaim to the world that his illegiti­ mate sister is his wife."^^^

Pierre’s preference for Isabel is founded, from the first, in description laced with sensuousness and passion.

This coincides with Pierre's becoming more aware of his inabi­ lity to be the idyllic lover to Lucy. His concentration, there fore, grows and centers on his newly revealed fleshliness. He is no longer Galahad, chaste in mind and body, but is less than celestial. He is of the "heavy earth," and only the things of the earth are suited to him. Pierre later conceives of Isabel as one "wholly out of the realms of mortalness"

(p. 142). In Pierre’s first encounter with Isabel the most striking thing is the mystical communication that takes place

158 Watkins, p. 46. 158

between them through long and sensually described glances :

The girl sits steadily sewing; neither she nor her two companions speak. Her eyes are mostly upon her work; but now and then a very close observer would notice that she furtively lifts them, and moves them sideways and timidly toward Pierre; and then, still more furtively and timidly toward his lady mother, further off. All the while, her pre­ ternatural calmness sometimes seems only made to cover the intensest struggle in her bosom. Her unadorned and modest dress is black; fitting close up to her neck, and clasping it with a plain, velvet border. To a nice perception, that velvet shows elastically; contracting and expanding, as though some choked, violent thing were risen up there within from the teeming region of her heart. . . . and for one swift instant, that face of supernatural­ ness unreservedly meets Pierre's. Now, wonderful loveliness, and a still more wonderful loneliness, have with inexplicable implorings, looked up to him from that henceforth immemorial face. There, too, he seemed to see the fair ground where Anguish had contended with Beauty, and neither being conqueror, both had laid down on the field (pp. 46-47).

After the letter of Isabel's is received and Pierre suffers the shock of recognition, it becomes clearer that Pierre is not only drawn to Isabel because of her claimed kindredship, but because of Pierre's fleshly impulsive attraction to her dark earthiness. At the moment of their first intimate meeting

He sprang to his feet, and caught her in his undoub­ ting arms. "Thou art!- thou art!" He felt a faint struggling within his clasp’; her head drooped against him; his whole form was bathed in the flowing glossiness of her long and unimprisoned hair. Brushing the locks aside, he now gazed upon the death-like beauty of the face, 159

and caught immortal sadness from it (p. 112).

Throughout the narrative Melville uses physiological descrip­

tive language in describing Isabel. We come to recognize

that she has a captivatingly beautiful face, that she has

a well-defined feminine form, that her bosom is large and

displayed attractively, her eyes are dark and communicative,

and that her hair is long, dark, and free-flowing. All of

the images are repeated many times as in the case of her hair

and all show a comprehensiveness in development in the book which might serve as a guide to Pierre’s own recognition of his more worldly role. Mixed, however, with this concern

for the physical is the element of mystery in Isabel's being.

Her immense soft tresses of the jettiest hair had slantingly fallen over her as though a curtain were half drawn from before some saint enshrined. To Pierre she seemed half unearthly; but his unearth­ liness was only her mysteriousness, not anything that was repelling or menacing to him (p. 118).

But always Melville brings Pierre back to seeing Isabel in a more earthly way. For instance, the image of the hair is a symbol of worldly vanity as well as being the symbolic dividing veil separating the divine from the earthly, but

Melville never lets the spiritual part of such an image sur­ vive too long without adding an element of worldliness to overbalance it: 160

_Pierre still sat waiting her resuming /to tell her story/, his eyes fixed upon the girl’s wonderfully beautiful ear, which chancing to peep forth from among her abundant tresses, nestled in that blackness like a transparent sea-shell of pearl (p. 119).

At the end of "The First Part of the Story of Isabel" Pierre kisses Isabel three times. Certainly explainable from the situation itself, there is little to indicate Pierre’s passionate desire for Isabel. There is, however, signifi­ cance to the fact that Pierre did kiss her and that Isabel was quite willing. Several pages later Pierre is obviously aware that he needs to convince himself, at least consciously, that the kisses were and are given out of fraternal love and emotion and not passion:

Sisters shrink not from their brothers’ kisses, And Pierre felt that never, never would he be able to embrace Isabel with the mere brotherly embrace; while the thought of any other caress, which took hold of any domesticness, was entirely vacant from his uncontaminated soul, for it had never consciously intruded there (p. 142).

One may notice, though, that Pierre doesn’t consider that half of his being is submerged in the subconscious and is relati­ vely uncontrollable. He believes that his present involvement with Isabel is motivated only by charity and that his atten­ tions to her feminine charms are only natural. It can be seen from this what the devastating results are from Mary

Glendinning’s encouragement of Pierre’s earlier role playing. 161

Having decided against the sublime love of Lucy, and acting

as the forementioned Galahad in Isabel’s defense, Pierre

unconsciously prepares the foundation for his conscious role

as sensuous, worldly lover. Although always seemingly aware

of the relationship’s moral taboo, Pierre makes no sustained

conscious effort to disavow his part in the new drama pre­

sented him. While each rationalizes their situation to the

other and projects their guilt on the world, they become more

closely allied in their conscious effort to act out the role

of sexual love. Isabel says, in a speech reminiscent of Eve,

"I am called woman, and thou, man, Pierre; but there is neither man nor woman about it. Why should I not speak out to thee? There is no sex in our immaculateness" (p. 149).

Pierre, just before revealing the planned deception, also

assures against impurity:

"I have bought inner love and glory by a price, which, large or small, I would not now have paid me back, so I must return the thing I bought. . . . I believe to God that I am pure, let the world think how it may" (p. 191).

When Pierre suggests his plan he is suggesting to Isabel that she join with him in his role of earthly lover. His purposes may be noble ones, but his body is at the same time throbbing for the fulfillment that such a role could bring. Using the tact of a cad and the design and cunning of Satan, Pierre slowly divulges his plan to Isabel in a 162

long speech (pp. 191-192). Pierre, using the persuasive

oratory of a salesman and the psychology of a propagandist, achieves three goals: one, he gains Isabel’s confidence

in his devotion to her through flattery; two, he bombasts her with the enticements of words and phrases like "bear me out,” "Hearken, hearken to me," "I call to thee now,"

"Listen" (repeated six times); three, he assures her of his complete nobleness and purity of intent with such things as

"Well mayest thou trust me," "without gratuitous dishonor,?'

"domestic confidence," "a harmless way," "always present domesticness of our love," and "a strange way, but most pure."

With the whispered words, "Come, I holding thee, thou canst not fall," Pierre confirms his conscious rationalization of his role as lover.

With the next paragraph Melville moves the relationship out of the darkness and into the shadows. Readers are never completely enlightened regarding Pierre and Isabel’s affair.

Since there are only figurative consummations of sexual love to be found, one cannot be sure of the actual physical ful­ fillment of incest. Yet, in this next scene Melville makes it quite clear what the newly-accepted role might lead to.

In one of the most sensual scenes in the entire book we per­ ceive the relationship and roles of Pierre and Isabel change: 163

He held her tremblingly; she bent over toward him; his mouth wet her ear; he whispered it. The girl moved not; was done with all her tremblings; leaned closer to him, with an inexpressible strangeness of an intense love, new and inexplicable. Over the face of Pierre there shot a terrible self­ revelation; he imprinted repeated burning kisses upon her; pressed hard her hand; would not let go her sweet and awful'passiveness. Then they changed; they coiled together, and entangledly stood mute (p. 192).

Many of the words of this section are suggestive of the

change: '’tremblingly,” "mouth wet her ear," "strangeness,”

"intense love," "burning kisses," "pressed hard," "awful

passiveness," "coiled," and "entangled." The one which is

most significant here, however, is: "there shot a terrible

self-revelation." It recalls the scene in Lucy's bedroom

that Pierre dismissed. It also helps to solidify that to

this point Pierre accepts his rationalization, but that now he understands what he is up to and why. That Pierre’s moral

decay is rampant is indicated by his imprinting burning kisses

on Isabel (note Melville doesn't say where) just after recog­ nizing his horrible situation, indicating the same type of

dismissal of moral consciousness that he had experienced while ogling Lucy’s nightgown.

As Mary Glendinning puts it, but in quite a different sense, Pierre "cut off, at one gross sensual dash, the fair succession of an honourable race" (p. 194). Pierre begins 164

his new role with his removal to New York City and on his

first night there betrays his real self again by looking

too hungrily and too long at a prostitute:

Pierre turned; and in the flashing, sinister, evil cross-lights of a druggist’s window, his eye caught the person of a wonderfully beautifully-fea­ tured girl; scarlet-cheeked, glaringly-arrayed, and of a figure all natural grace but unnatural vivacity. Her whole form, however, was horribly lit by the green and yellow rays from the druggist’s” (p. 237).

Suffering from fits of passion and periodic undulations of his conscience, Pierre does try to maintain his former morally-founded commitment as well as his Galahad role.

However, to sustain such a devotion to the ethical, Pierre needs strength which he doesn't have. He is steadily losing religious faith and the ability to love Isabel ideally. He now floats nebulously in the fleshly world of the senses and is, therefore, subject to the dictates of his own passions.

Caught by the fragments of his own moral conscience in his new role of passion, Pierre projects his guilt onto Isabel and speaks a forceful rhetoric:

"Let the arms that never were filled but by thee, lure thee back again, Pierre, to the peace of the twilight, even though it be of the dimmest!” She blew out the light, and made Pierre sit down by her; and their hands were placed in each other’s. "Say, are not thy torments now gone, my brother?" "But replaced by--by--by--Oh God, Isabel, unhand me!" cried Pierre, starting up. "Ye heavens, 165

that have hidden yourselves in the black hood of the night, I call to ye! If to follow Virtue to her uttermost vista, where common souls never go; if by that I take hold on hell, and the uttermost virtue, after all, prove but a betraying ponder to the monstrousest vice,--then close in and crush me, ye stony walls, and into one gulf let all things tumble together!” (p. 273).

But before the scene is closed the force of the speech is dissolved into passiveness and submission to the present role:

Swiftly he caught her in his arms. . . . "Let us sit down again, Pierre; sit close; thy arm!" And so, on the third night, when the twilight was gone, and no lamp was lit, within the lofty window of that beggarly room, sat Pierre and Isabel hushed (p. 274).

Melville continues the sensual dialogue throughout the rest of the book to the point at which Pierre bids both girls death. In what is the last scene of this nature we are aware of Pierre’s unquenchable response to passion:

He was presently roused from the strange revery into which the conclusion of this scene had thrown him, by the touch of Isabel's hand upon his knee, and her large expressive glance upon his face.

Thus speaking, one hand was on her bosom . . . Pierre, at that instant, did not so particularly note the all-significant movement of the hand upon her bosom, though afterward he recalled it, and darkly and thoroughly comprehended its meaning (pp. 332-333).

Melville closes the scene, and role, by having Pierre's image of ideal love juxtaposed to that of what could be the most monstrous of loves: 166

Before the eyes of seated Lucy, Pierre and Isabel stood locked; Pierre's lips upon her cheek (p. 334).

Closely following is the section on "Enceladus" which welds

together Pierre's role as the product of evil love with that

of Lucifer and the defiance of God.

Pierre as Satan

The last role which Pierre plays out ends in total

despair and death. "All confidence in God forsakes him, as

the clarity of truth blurs into the ambiguous malice of evil."159 Due to his lack of faith even in his original

mission Pierre is constantly surrounded by doubt. The in­

roads to his Satanic end begin early and move him to the ulti­

mate. Although beginning in unconscious or spontaneous acts,

the role eventually surfaces and he accepts it and pushes

it to its brink. Much has already been said about Pierre's

lack of a healthy religious background and of his resulting

despair, but we must here consider that Pierre takes on the

role of despair as ardently as he did that one of Hope and

gallantry. It is the raving defiance and the abject accep­

tance of this role which finally damns him and removes what­

ever traces of the classical hero one has seen in him.

It is not accurate to believe that Pierre never realizes his mistakes and his swollen pride. It is more accurate

159 Matthiessen, p. 470 167

and more disheartening to see that Pierre does see what has happened and accepts it. There is no humble plea for mercy and forgiveness, merely resignation.

An hour does come when Pierre "learns that in his infinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do . . . despise him, and own him not of their clan." He has to acknowledge his mortality, and that he does--but still mistakenly, by defying the gods and trying to be a Titan.

The weakness of Pierre's true moral character and the overwhelming power of his pride are emphasized. But Pierre’s aptitude for sin is increasingly shown in a number of overt ways beginning with his first lie to his mother:

"I swear to you, my dearest mother, that never before in my whole existence, have I so completely gone wandering in my soul, as at that very moment" (p. 48).

He is aware of the strange feeling that produces this unplanned deception:

But he was sensible that this general effect upon him, was also special; the face somehow mystically appealing to his own private and individual affec­ tions; and by a silent and tyrannic call, challen­ ging him in his deepest moral being, and summoning Truth, Love, Pity, Conscience, to the stand. Apex of all wonders! thought Pierre; this indeed almost unmans me with its wonderfulness (p. 49).

The "tyrannic call” that "unmans" him is the temptation to know what only the gods can know. It is the temptation of

160 Watkins, p. 49. 168

Eden being used on Pierre. Because Pierre doesn’t recog­

nize the limits of the finite, the quest of Godly Truth is

founded on pride alone with a marked weakness in the columns

of faith. To make this point Melville extends the earlier

image of the temple of Palmyra (p. 8) which Pierre had

likened to his ancestry and which he hoped "to have a monopoly of glory in capping the fame-column, whose tall shaft had been erested by his noble sires." One should pay particular attention to the instability of the arche- tectural images as well as the melancholy that such a Gothic structure calls to mind. As Melville employs the equivocal syntax here one is made to feel somewhat uncomfortable by the shakiness of Pierre’s devotion:

But though thus mantled, and tangled with garlands, this shrine was of marble--a niched pillar, deemed solid and eternal, and from whose top radiated all those innumerable sculptured scrolls and branches, which supported the entire one-pillared temple of his moral life; as in some beautiful Gothic oratories, one central pillar, trunk-like, upholds the roof. In this shrine, in this niche of this pillar, stood the perfect marble form of his departed father; without blemish, unclouded, snow-white, and serene; Pierre's fond personification of perfect human good­ ness and virtue. Before this shrine, Pierre poured out the fulness of all young life’s most reverential thoughts and beliefs. Not to God had Pierre ever gone in his heart, unless by ascending the steps of that shrine, and so making it the vestibule of his abstractest religion (p. 68). (Italics mine)

As Pierre begins his movement toward disintegration from the 169

human and spiritual races, he sheds his allegiances one

by one until "at the very end he is neither human nor

inhuman, godly nor ungodly: ’Pierre is neuter now!’"161

His mother was no longer this all-alluring thing; no more; he too keenly felt, could he go to his mother, as to one who entirely sympathised with him; as to one before whom he could almost unreser­ vedly unbosom himself; as to one capable of pointing out to him the true path where he seemed most beset(p. 89).

Since Pierre knows honesty is to be never compromised, any compromises he makes with it must be considered willful.

His inability to adequately evaluate the worth of filial love and social images when placed in the midst of honesty leads him to his first equivocation which proceeds to the ultimate.

In the speech to follow it is interesting to recognize the irony. Because Pierre knows his mother likes only the pleasant things, he disposes with forthrightness. Yet, when Mary says "it may prove a fatal thing," we recognize that the fatality involved for the socially-minded Pierre is in his eventually telling her anything:

Pierre, Pierre! consider well before thou determinest upon withholding confidence from me. I am thy mother. It may prove a fatal thing. Can that be good and virtuous, Pierre, which shrinks from a mother’s knowledge? (p. 96).

It is true what she says. If one compromises his honesty at

161 Lebowitz, p. 166. 170

any time he cannot be concerned with virtue. Understanding this, Pierre responds resolutely:

He trembled to think, that now indeed was come the first initial moment of his heavy trial. But though he knew all the significances of his mother's attitude ... he was girded up in his well-considered resolution (p. 96).

Deception of one's own flesh can lead only to easier and larger compromises of virtue which in the case of Pierre occurs. Once he learns to accept the life of the lie (which ironically is what he thinks he is fighting against) it is easier for him to rationalize that "heaven would justify him" in his "most singular act of pious imposture" (p. 173).

As the plan widens like a gyre, Pierre is forced to make larger and larger concessions. After having read Plinlimmon's pamphlet, being rebuked by his family and friends, and living intimately with his sister, Pierre reaches the crossroads where his moralness and immoralness seem the same:

"Look: a nothing is the substance, it casts one shadow one way, and another the other way; and these two shadows cast from one nothing; these, seems to me, are Virtue and Vice" (p. 274).

Just as Satan in Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger announces,

"Life itself is only a vision, a dream. ... Nothing exists; all is a dream. God--man--the world-- the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars--a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space--and you! ... It is true, that which I have revealed to you: there is no God, 171

no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream—a grotesque and foolish dream.”

Pierre says,

"That a nothing should torment a nothing; for I am a nothing. It is all a dream—we dream that we dreamed we dream. . . . From nothing proceeds nothing, Isabel! How can one sin in a dream? (p. 274).

This point in the romance marks the spot at which Pierre consciously accepts the fantasy of his rationalization as truth and moves along the straight course of his role as hater and Satan. He emphasizes the hopelessness of life and becomes dedicated to iconoclastic destruction of dreams. He believes, for instance, that:

in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough they know they are in peril; well enough they know the causes of that peril; nevertheless, the sea is the sea, and these drowning men do drown (p. 303).

Believing that he was tricked and duped by the Fates, Pierre swears to strike back at both the world and the gods that control it.

Now he began to feel that in him, the thews of a Titan were forestallingly cut by the scissors of Fate. He felt as a moose, hamstrung. All things that think, or move, or lie still, seemed as created to mock and torment him. He seemed gifted with loftiness, merely that it might be dragged down to the mud. Still, the profound willfulness in him would not give up. . . . His soul's ship foresaw the inevitable rocks, but resolved to sail on, and make a courageous wreck. Now he gave jeer for 172

jeer, and taunted the apes that jibed him. With the soul of an Atheist, he wrote down the godliest things (p. 339).

Pierre gives blasphemy to heaven and misanthropy to man in an effort to gain their attention so he might deliver his divinest of messages. "Pierre himself now becomes at once the Prometheus and the Christ, who, as he writes his novel, would bring the flame of truth to man and thus redeem men 162 from appearances." His book of Truth full of censures is based on a special kind of contempt:

His was the scorn which thinks it not worth thé while to be scornful. Those he most scorned, never knew it (p. 339).

His interest and sympathy is with the social castaways with whom he felt some identity,

But at last he began to feel a distaste for even these; and now nothing but the utter night-desolation of the obscurest warehousing lanes would content him, or be at all sufferable to him.

As Pierre becomes less human and more neuter his rejection of community and acceptance of isolation grow. Pierre’s isolation can be related, as well, to his notion of being a wasted demi-god who must through his defiance assert his claim to the highest place in the order of things. "Pierre seems to aspire to teach truth to God himself, God is thus made finite, a horological creature to be instructed by the

162 Stern, p. 178. 173

1 z: o chronometrical Pierre."x J

At the height of isolation and intimidation of the heavens, Pierre has his dream-vision of the Titan, Encelaudus.

Pierre can see through the analogical dream the need to assault the heaven. In Encelaudus he discovers the supreme atheist and avenger; he can recognize similar undying strength of motivation, however useless and masochistic it may seem. Encelaudus’ defiance was Pierre's defiance. The heavens are to be blamed and forever reminded of their savagery by constant blasphemous assault. The demonical

Encelaudus is transformed into Pierre:

"Encelaudus! it is Encelaudus!" Pierre cried out in his sleep. That moment the phantom faced him; and Pierre saw Encelaudus no more; but on the Titan's armless truck, his own duplicate face and features magnifiedly gleamed upon him with prophetic dis­ comfiture and woe (p. 346).

Pierre accepts the role fully:

The present mood of Pierre--that reckless sky-assault­ ing mood of his, was nevertheless on one side the grandson of the sky. . . . Wherefore whose storms the sky gives best proof he came from thither!(p. 347).

Pierre then moves quickly through the murder scene and to that of his suicide. He accepts his role so completely that he seeks the realm of the spiritually damned:

163 Watkins, p. 48. 174

"Now, 'tis merely hell in both worlds. Well, be it hell, I will mould a trumpet of the flames, and, with my breath of flame, breathe back my defiance! ... Oh now to live is death, and now to die is life; now, to my soul, were a sword my midwife” (p. 360).

Significantly, Melville chooses the final scene to be the

’’granite hell” (p. 360) of the city prison. In the dungeon on the earthen floor are sprawled Pierre and his two ’’angels” while the hustle of the world above them grinds on in seem­ ing mockery and irreverance.

In the end, /Pierre/ is not the Christ or Titan he dreams himself, not even a Memnon or Hamlet, but a latter-day Widow of Ephesus. Like the woman of the legend, who, in dedicating herself to an impossible ideal of fidelity, ended by desecrating the grave of her husband in lust and hanging his body on a public gallows, Pierre invents for himself crimes beyond the ken of ordinary men, a denouement almost as comic as it is terrible.13^

The role is the necessary end to Pierre’s life of faithless role playing that had pawned reality for the comfort of plastic image.

The Enceladus in man must see that as one-self it is nothing--it is the mountain it assaults just as the zero-center-self of Plinlimmon is the nothing he does not communicate. As man-self, Enceladus must turn his back on nothing, and only then can he see himself as more than an agonizingly pitiful spark that flashes for less th jn an i' nst' an't across tne blank face of eternity. >5

164 Fiedler, p. 420.

165 Stern, p. 204. CHAPTER FOUR: ISABEL AND LUCY

"Our lives are kept in equipoise By opposite attractions and desires; The struggle of the instinct that enjoys, And the more noble instinct that aspires.”

Haunted Houses—Longfellow

In the spring of 1854 Melville symbolized the dualness

that he perceived to be the ever-present aspect of mortal

life in The Encantadas when he wrote,

no more than my firmest resolutions can decline to behold the spectre-tortoise when emerging from its shadowy recess; yet even the tortoise, dark and melancholy as it is up the back, still possesses a brighter side; its calipee or breast-plate being sometimes a faint yellowish or golden tinge. More­ over, every one knows that tortoises as well as turtles are of such a make, that if you but put them on their backs you thereby expose their bright sides without the possibility of their recovering them­ selves, and turning into view the other. °°

It is enough to say that this is a theme that Melville never exhausted and that he worked with in all of his major novels, including Pierre. It is hardly possible to read through more than a few chapters of any of these books before confronting such paradox. The irony produced by this doubleness is usually a factor in moving the plot along.

The ironic developments that occur in Pierre due to the

166 Constable edition, vol. 10, pp. 188-189. 176

antithetical ethical systems and seemingly contrasting char­

acters such as Isabel and Lucy are among the better examples.

What had begun to build in Typee and the earlier romances

became the well developed perception of fundamental dualism

in the themes of Mardi, Moby-Dick, Pierre, and later The

Confidence-Man.

What bothered Melville eversince he began to think about the differences between the sensuous instinc­ tual life of the savages and the tortures of the aspiring mind and spirit became _part of the contrast between the two girls /in Pierre/. Pierre seems to need them both, but far below any conscious awareness, he is drawn most naturally to the dark life-giving forces of Isabel, the forces that were being so atrophied by the incessant pale American search for the ideal.167 (italics mine)

Although drawn eventually to Isabel, Pierre certainly can be seen to value and protect each girl. Pierre is moved,

as has been seen, by both conscious and unconscious motives.

His situation has been so construed because of innate passion and cultural environment, but has become ambiguous because of the exclusive attentions paid one or another. Pierre’s pride has held him from realizing the human balance between the divine and the demonic. Wherever there is acceptance, it is total; wherever rejection, it is absolute. Pierre is a book about two worlds which never become fused into one.

167 Matthiessen, p. 484. 177

While concentrating on the parts, the hero misses the inte­

gral whole of life. He knows the moral but lives by the

passions and senses and, thereby, rejects the equilibrium of

finite man. ’’Lucy and Isabel represent principles or neces-

sities equally vital to man's soul." Yet, these elements

of necessity require the temperament of restriction and

faithful conscience. Pierre believed that to accept one

was to reject the other. This accounts for his dismissal of

his mother as a trustworthy counselor in favor of Isabel

as well as his rejection of the angelic Lucy for the myster­

ious Isabel. Pierre eventually rejects all of mankind in

favor of the ideal. Although his misanthropy is gradual,

it is finally total. The plot of the romance attests to

the fact that Pierre is in constant movement away from some­

thing and in quest of other things. There is no real effort

ever shown to realize a norm of behavior. Of itself, Pierre’s

compulsion to search for the ideal is not wrong. Pierre falls when that urge blinds him to his human bonds and plays so heavily on his soul that he pridefully isolates himself from

God and man. It is not, on the other hand, a confirmation

of Plinlimmon’s expediency, but a commitment to hope and

168 Sedgwick, p. 148. 178

faith in God and man that makes striving for the ideal real­

istic. It is because Pierre chooses not to deal with both

halves of the whole at once that the ambiguities encroach

on his world. The world, nor any of its parts, is to be

seriously blamed for Pierre’s fate. It is because of his

final brutal Titanism and his lack of faith in forces greater

than him that he fails. ”We realize /Lucy and Isabe// sym­ bolize opposite shadows of the same absolute, and they share

equally in Pierre’s tragic fate,” but they are not to be blamed. If either of the girls deserves condemnation it has little to do with Pierre's direct failure. Pierre chooses

to read Isabel's hearsay evidence, to rely on presentiments, to reject Lucy, to deceive his mother, and to kill Glen Stanly and himself. It is interesting to query what would have taken place had Pierre felt secure in the fact that society (his mother, et. al.) would accept Isabel. One needs to wonder what the effect would have been since it is clear that Isa­ bel doesn't motivate the action and that society's system of ethics does. Further, one needs to realize that had Pierre's faith in himself, family, society, man, and God been pure and strong that what we see as temptations would become mere tests and proofs of his moral stability. Instead, readers

169 Kissane, p. 570. 179

have commonly gone off believing that determinism had defeated

the .budding American chivalric hero and that its tools were

the symbolic paradox of Lucy and Isabel. Obviously, what

we are debating here is point of view. It is not to excuse

Lucy and Isabel from being incorporated into the action that

brings Pierre’s downfall, but to show that Pierre, and not

these girls, is the prime mover. It is the contradiction

that ensues because of Pierre’s refusal to accept the equili­ brium between the two extremes that confuses his world in a net of ambiguities. It is not the extremes in and of themselves.

What finally puts an end to his quest (and his life) is neither priest nor philosopher, neither Pilot nor Judas, but the puzzling contradictions contained in the two Marys who attend him throughout—the Magdalen-like Isabel and the Virgin-like Lucy.

Milton Stern indicates clearly the tenuousness of the positions of the two girls in relation to Pierre’s fate.

Insofar as _/Lucy/ would have redeemed Pierre, she is the good angel. Because she became another Pierre, she is the bad angel, too. Pierre, stone, kills earth and quester when he kills Lucy. So too, Isabel lures Pierre to stone, and is the bad angel. Yet she activates Pierre's heart and consciousness, and she represents aspiration; she is the good angel, too.171

170 John D. Seelye. Melville: The Ironic Diagram. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1970, p. 83.

171 Stern, p. 179. 180

Lucy and Isabel are also effective tools in achieving

an almost constant awareness of the theological and ethical

interests in the story. Melville refers, with regularity,

to both of the girls as angels. The Christian notion of

the "good angel" and the "bad angel" becomes quite obvious

throughout the book. Yet, it is to be carefully noted that

neither of the angels' (girls’) character remains static

and without some degree of change. The previous comment by

Stern is only a small indication of the metamorphosis and

instability of their characters. It is to be kept in mind

that Melville uses the angel image as symbol only and that

it is in the fact that they are in constant mutation that

attests to their humanness. Since the narrator, in the early part of the story, is the only one who can know what is really happening (the others are either too young, naive, or bound-

in by social prejudice), his attitude in the matter of the angelity of the girls is important. For instance, he warns that he is only interested in the heavenly qualities of Lucy Tartan, but assures the reader of her mortality:

her parentage, what fortune she would possess, how many dresses in her wardrobe, and how many rings upon her fingers; cheerfully would I let the gene- ologists, tax-gatherers, and upholsterers attend to that. My proper province is with the angelical part of Lucy. But as in some quarters, there prevails a sort of prejudice against angels, who are merely 181

angles and nothing more; therefore I shall martyrise myself, by letting such gentlemen and ladies into some details of Lucy Tartan’s history (p. 25).

Stemming from this basic analogy have come a number of notable inferences about the symbolic messages that Lucy and Isabel carry in Pierre. E. L. Grant Watson was one of the first modem critics of this book to believe that

Isabel is the angel of the dark. . . . She is no earthly or physical representation, but is a soul- image, an image, too, of an awakening universe. She is a symbol of the consciousness of the tragic aspect of life; she is /Pierre’s./ angel of experience as contrasted with Lucy, who is his angel of inno­ cence. ^72

While equating good and bad with innocence and experience, other parallels are noted such as those mentioned by Richard

Chase. He relates the mechanical structure of the book with the cycle of the terrestial phenomenon by believing that

’’Pierre is this physical sphere; and Lucy and Isabel are the Day and Night which encompass him.”^3 a not-too-close examination of the text of Pierre immediately bears out this assertion. The color, hue, and shadow images are directly related to the girls and are, therefore, constantly changing in degree. (The extent of such changes will be covered later

172 Watson, p. 201.

!73 Chase, p. 120. 182

in this chapter.) Interestingly enough, Chase- has recognized that ’’almost invariably Pierre visits /Lucy/ in the morning, just as he almost invariably visits Isabel at night."174

Such relationships go on to establish clearer guidelines for the reader to follow while observing Pierre’s dilemma, and they also help to explain the confusion and ambiguities that he is confounded by. It is because Pierre expects stability as he understands it in the human world also to be present in the celestial and the physically ordered worlds that he makes wrong predictions and choices. He believes that since

Lucy appears to be divine that she is. She is considered by him, therefore, an inappropriate recepticle for human (lust­ ful) love. Isabel is consciously understood to be a sister- in-need, but Pierre later discovers that both he and she recognize a deeper love exists between them. We can add to these two wrong assumptions Pierre’s disillusionment with his mother, Falsgrave, his publishers, and Glen Stanly.

While watching for such guidelines in the book, one can observe, for instance, that "Isabel (or bell) represents

Sound, as Lucy represents Sight. Isabel is a bell. Whenever we hear anything in the novel, we hear Isabel; whenever we

174 Chase, p. 115. 183

1 7 S see anything we see Lucy.” ° This helps to explain why

readers come away from this romance knowing Lucy Tartan and,

on the other hand, feeling only as if they have seen an

apparition, a phantom, in regard to the mysterious Isabel.

Each girl is not only a physical half, but also a sensual

half of the world. It is when we get close to the termination

points of the separate halves that the clarity of their

characters becomes ambiguous; it is when they evolve to

such extreme degrees that their humanness is most evident.

Each of these "Angels" represents both good and evil existing in close proximity to Pierre, and emblematic of Pierre’s dual nature, each will even­ tually prove to be, allegorically, a thief. Between these two theives, Pierre will continue striving to be Christ until the crucifixion is completed.

Pierre resides, in the last half of the book, most often

between these two halves in the nebulous realm of physical

zero. He has made strides to the accession of the personal

divine and has rejected the corrupt world of men. Yet, the

two girls to whom his human life was devoted still cling to him in hopes of gaining his love:

Thus Pierre is fastened on by two leeches;--how then can the life of Pierre last? Lo! he is fitting himself for the highest life, by thinning his blood

^75 chase, p. 119.

176 Thompson, p. 285. 184

and collapsing his heart. He is learning how to live, by rehearsing the part of death (pp. 303-305).

By emphasizing such duality, much can be made of the

ethical and moral conflicts. The one saving principle, however, is to recognize that the girls are mere symbols

and are in and of themselves human. They are earth-bound

although at times they are seen to have divine or mystical traits which hint at man’s close relationship to the uni­ verse or some higher order. One critic has indicated that

’’Lucy stands for the present moment, for earthly contentment and well-being, but Isabel represents some transcendent state, her dark beauty revealing ’glimpses of some fearful gospel' /p. 43/. Her face is a study in contradictions.”177

What has entrapped some readers is the same thing that con­ fused Pierre; they accept the symbol as the reality. There­ fore, interpretation is based upon inaccurate presumptions which come as a product of the unpredictability of human nature. The spiritual duality in the book can be seen most clearly by concentrating on the metaphors used in describing

Lucy and Isabel, but not in the descriptions themselves. One of the most basic metaphors for Melville: the contrast between land and sea, is used in Pierre to help clarify the spiritual contrast. W. E. Sedgwick has indicated that "the

177 Seelye, p. 84. 185

moral and spiritual contrast between Lucy and Isabel is the contrast between the sea and the land in Moby-Dick. . . .

Isabel, who has the same significance as the sea, at once appeals to the robust, healthy soul in Pierre--and he grows 178 in spiritual stature.” Charles Moorman has similarly shown that "Lucy is identified with the safety, the comfort, and the sterility of the land, Isabel with the mystery, the violence, and the fertility of the sea."179 Early in the book Melville says of Lucy:

She resided an only daughter with her mother, in a very fine house in the city. But though her home was in the city, her heart was twice a year in the country. She did not at all love the city and its empty, heartless, ceremonial ways. It was strange, but most eloquently significant of her own natural angelhood that, though born among brick and mortar in a sea-port, she still pined for unbaked earth and inland grass (pp. 25-26).

Later Isabel is shown to be drawn by the magic call and ¿.its i- -j. openness of the sea:

"Dost thou not understand, Pierre?" said Lucy, eyeing with concern and wonder his pale, staring aspect--"Ihe waves; it is the motion of the waves that Isabel speaks of. Look, they are rolling, direct from the sea now."

"Don’t let us stop here," cried Isabel. "Look, let us go through there! Bell must go through there! See! see! out there upon the blue! yonder, yonder!

178 Sedgwick, p. 151.

179 Moorman, p. 25. 186

far away--out, out! far, far away, and away, and away, out there! where the two blues meet, and are nothing—Bell must go" (p. 355)!

Pierre recognizes the spiritual contrast and speaks in the same metaphor. It seems likely that his reference to "solid land" and "flotillas of spectre-boats" is emblematic of the effect Lucy and Isabel have on him.

He felt that what he had always before considered the solid land of veritable reality, was now being auda­ ciously encroached upon by bannered armies of hooded phantoms, disembarking in his soul, as from flotillas of spectre-boats (p. 49).

We can gather further from the metaphor the impression that we are also considering Time and Space, the two dimensions which slowly close in on Pierre and from which he longs to escape.

In a larger sense, Lucy is Space. She is the medium, the measurement, the future possibility of earth in its celestial transit. She is the dimension of clarity, intelligence and aspiration. Isabel represents Time and the dark processes of growth, maturation and decay.

The more Pierre becomes devoted to his assault on the heavens, the greater his desire to separate himself from the whole of humanity, which when combined, Lucy and Isabel are representive of. As he tries to regain what-he has lost by challenging the heavens as Enceladus, his thoughts are on

180 Chase, p. 124. 187

the idyllic paradise that, like Adam’s, had been lost.

Pierre’s happier remembrances steadily undermine his sense of purpose. Isabel is an economic burden as well as a symbolic cross and an infernal temptation to sin. . . . Lucy's willingness to live with Isabel ... is equally important in that she is another mouth to feed.131 *

The evidence of Isabel’s and Lucy’s mortality is seen

in their willing adaption to the circumstances of New York.

Lucy aspires to be another Pierre in her prideful devotion

to the ideal. She has shed the aura of naivete and has also

shed the "fleecy” image of guardian angel. She works within

the role of the human by announcing that her mission is

divine and that she is, in essence, a prophet. Isabel is no longer content to be a sister pretending to be a wife.

She plays the role of the suspicious spouse. John D. Seelye has put it this way:

Having become saintly through suffering, Lucy comes to the city to share Pierre’s apartment with Isabel, and her presence casts further doubt on the hero’s already wavering resolve. For in this strange arrangement, it is now Lucy who is the suffering innocent, while Isabel takes on the role of Pierre’s proud and jealous mother (who had earlier played at being Pierre’s sister).133

The girls' roles change so drastically by the end of the book

131 Lebowitz, p. 165.

!82 Seelye, pp. 85-86. 188

that we can see in both of them the desire to sell their souls. Pierre has lost his soul because of a misplaced faith and hope. His ego thirsts for conquest just as Lucy's does when she comes to the city to "save" Pierre. Her motive may be divine, but her humanness betrays her when she dies after hearing that Pierre is really not married at all.

Isabel has moved from the position of a sister claiming her just due to a woman and wife who is jealous and vengeful.

After Isabel tries to commit suicide by jumping into the ocean because she feared Lucy’s motives for coming to New

York, she eventually kills herself with Pierre in a final fit of passion and despair. The cycle is completed when both girls move from one extreme to its antithesis. "Lucy becomes in time only an unworldly naif, like Pierre, thinking to sell drawings and so support them all. And supernatural

Isabel, Melville's extreme mystery of mysteries, offers to sell her hair and teeth for the same purpose." ° The sketches of Lucy's have taken on the connotation of freedom and purity of mind just as the hair and mouth of Isabel have shown her most potent source of sensuousness; yet, they have moved so far away from their original commitment that their willingness to sacrifice these things becomes the ironical

183 Lebowitz, p. 159. 189

sign of their inmost change.

Lucy: A Female Enceladus

Lucy Tartan can be considered the detailed external complement of Pierre’s moral life at Saddle-Meadows prior to our meeting him in the story. The roles that Lucy plays are very similar to those of Pierre as is her final decision to reject the community of Saddle-Meadows in favor of the iso­ lation and relative loss of social identity offered in New

York. The conclusion is an obvious tying together of the fates of three people who have shared in the same errors in judgment. Lucy’s movement from the position of an untouchable angel to that of a scheming, envious shrew is related in type to that of Pierre's. Melville had been consciously building toward a believable and unique female character since he experimented with Fayaway, but had had little success until Yillah in Mardi. ”ln Mardi Melville used young women to symbolize the spiritual and the vegetal souls; in Pierre he does likewise, and he adds a third /Lucy;/ to symbolize the sensible soul.” In the combined characterization of Lucy and Isabel, Melville has reached his zenith in the matter of narrative creation of the female.

184. Braswell, p. 94. 190

Lucy shows little growth from her isolated naive posi­ tion in the early portions of the book to the point where she announces her intention to bsekwith Pierre in New York. For the most part we are constantly reminded that she is angelic in purity and loveliness and that she knows little of evil.

She is from the city, but from what we learn of Mrs. Tartan we can be sure that she was restricted to the proper circles of acquaintances. She was saturated in the lore of Saddle-

Meadows, idyllic beauty, the comforts of wealth, and an assurance that she and Pierre had been granted a Providence that little ill could ever befall their love. The most in­ tense vice that can be detected in Lucy Tartan during the first four-fifths of the book is her immature female pride in having snared Pierre. Early in the book she indicates her vanity:

yet at bottom she rather cherished a notion that Pierre bore a charmed life, and by no earthly possi­ bility could die from her, or experience any harm, when she was within a thousand leagues (p. 22).

Later, when Pierre keeps having visions of the face and becomes frightened while on a buggy ride with Lucy, she too becomes afraid. However, her naive fear is for the physical safety of Pierre, whereas his fear is deeper and metaphysical

Although Pierre did not understand the threat to him, he 191

understood its nature and was visibly shaken. Had Lucy been

more perceptive she would have recognized that it would have

been highly out of character for Pierre to fear physical dan­

gers. Instead, she is bothered because of Pierre's not

swearing "that thou wilt never keep a secret from me" (p. 37).

When Pierre turns "icy cold and hard," she thinks it is due

merely to his failure to make the pledge. While Pierre pon­

ders the cause of his inability to swear to her, Lucy con­

siders only the immediate effect of the absent promise on

their relationship. So, when Pierre says, "now I was infinite

distances from thee, oh my Lucy," Lucy thinks he is ashamed

of his actions and blames the place that they chose for their

outing. "Up, my Pierre; let us up, and fly these hills,

whence, I fear, too wide a prospect meets us" (p. 38). Sure

in their ideal love, they return to Lucy's aunt’s home where

Lucy soon feels safe and all is forgotten while she sketches.

Yet, on an upper floor Pierre is simultaneously having fits

of passion and is experiencing things which are yet undreamed

of by Lucy. At this point "Lucy's unearthliness is the fra­ gility of inexperience and of blind and youthful joy."1^

It is the place from which Pierre has come and has now begun

185 Stern, p. 155. 192

to exit. When Pierre later reconsiders Lucy for his bride,

he decides that she is too pure and not worldly enough for

his mortal spirit. At this stage, "Lucy may very well rep­

resent a sort of sterility when she is considered in rela­

tion to Isabel, who 'fertilizest' Pierre.”133 The last we

see of Lucy Tartan as the angelic child is when she is terror

stricken by Pierre's announcement that he is married. Lucy,

to be sure, is moved by her tender love for him as well as

that degree of selfishness which accompanies all such rela­

tionships. She faints from misery, but not from some philo­

sophical presentiment of deeper meaning. When Pierre first

enters her chamber

Lucy caught his pale determined figure, she gave a cry of groping misery, which knew not the pang that caused it, and lifted herself trembling in her bed; but without uttering a word (p. 183).

What should be noticed here is that Lucy is taken back by

Pierre's long absence from her and his sudden unannounced

appearance. His manner and his deportment are too casual

and unsophisticated in comparison to his generally high

regard for decorum. Something must have been wrong for

Pierre to show himself so. When-she learns the news, her

first reaction, after fainting, is to accuse some fiend for

186 Moorman, p. 23. 193

daring to bear the image of Pierre:

Martha! Martha! . . . quick, quick; come to me— drive it away! wake me! wake me!

The reaction is quite predictable and in line with Lucy's

character at this time. She is concerned about herself,

her marriage, and her Pierre. Her disregard for higher

meanings is clear as she charges that Satan himself must have visited her dreams. With Pierre’s departure, we leave

Lucy to mature in spirit and mind until she reappears in

New York.

Lucy is indirectly revealed once more before her

letter appears, and announces her plan to rejoin Pierre in

New York. We learn through Pierre, who has received "verbal tiding," that Lucy is finally recovering "from an almost mor­ tal illness" and that "Glen Stanly was believed to be the suitor of Lucy" (p. 285). Therefore, it is learned indirectly that Lucy is still trying to find a similar replacement for the lost Pierre. Since her illness is only mentioned in passing we cannot concretely diagnose it, but we can assume that it may be the direct effect of being jilted by Pierre.

The search for a new suitor has brought Lucy’s old friend, newly rich, into light. Again, when we consider what Mel­ ville has told us of the courtship-ethic by which Mrs. Tartan lives, we can presume that Stanly was as much baited as he 194

was willing to marry Lucy. Lucy seems to be living in the

trance-like memory of Pierre. Pierre later recognizes that:

Under the mask of profound sympathy--in time, rip­ ening into love--for a most beautiful girl, ruffianly deserted by her betrothed, Glen could afford to be entirely open in his new suit, without at all exposing his old scar to the world. So at least it now seemed to Pierre. . . . Indeed, situated now as he was, Glen would seem all the finest part of Pierre, without any of Pierre’s shame; would almost seem Pierre himself--what Pierre had once been to Lucy. . . . It did not seem wholly out of reason to suppose, that the great manly beauty of Glen, possessing a strong related similitude to Pierre's, might raise in Lucy’s heart associations, which would lead her at least to seek--if she could not find--solace for one now regarded as dead and gone to her forever, in the devotedness of another, who would notwithstanding almost seem as that dead one brought back to life (p. 288).

The next we hear of her is through her pleading letter to

Pierre. However, some important inferences can be drawn

from this preceeding sequence. Since Lucy had spurned Glen

once before, it seems only-likely -that she would not be able

to stand him again. The paper image that Glen was living behind was Pierre’s and it was probably only a matter of time until Lucy recognized that he was merely a substitute. It is

likely that the very things that Glen tried to usurp from

Pierre (image, money, family, Lucy) became the things that most soured his cause to Lucy. This may offer a more prag­ matic reason for Lucy's coming to the city. If we are not willing to accept that she rejoins Pierre solely on whim 195

and divine direction, we may then consider her female motives

Lucy may not have consciously considered the role of house- wrecker to be a motive at all, but in her desire to see and be with Pierre she unknowingly and ironically asks Pierre to commit himself to the opposite situation he has with

Isabel. Pierre takes his sister in and masquerades her as his lover and wife; Lucy petitions him to take his lover in and masquerade her as his ”nun-like cousin." The threat she represents is clear to Isabel, if not to Lucy herself.

Because Lucy is violently in love with Pierre she pretends to believe that only seeing him will be enough. Like Pierre, she underestimates the powers of the passions and overesti­ mates her strength to resist them. Although Lucy thinks of her arrival as a mission of mercy and love, with the stamp of the divine on it, Isabel and Pierre recognize it as quite another thing.

We cannot disregard the importance of Pierre’s reaction to his finding Glen courting Lucy. It is powerful and angry and one wonders whether Pierre killed Glen for his "one blow" or if his death was "speechless sweet" because of all

Glen had usurped from him, including Lucy. It is certain that Pierre’s hatred was deep from his initial reaction to the news: 196

It is not natural for a man, never mind who he may be, to see a noble patrimony, rightfully his, go over to a soul-alien, and that alien once his rival in love, and now his heartless, sneering foe; for: so Pierre could not but now argue of Glen; it is not natural for a man to see this without singular emotions of discomfort and hate. Nor in Pierre were these feelings at all soothed by the report of Glen's renewed attentions to Lucy.

An infinite quenchless rage and malice possessed him. Many commingled emotions combined to provoke this storm. But chief of all was something strangely akin to that indefinable detestation which one feels for any impostor . . . (pp. 288-289).

It must be kept in mind that Pierre never denied his love

for Lucy, but that he suspended it for what he consciously

thought was a greater cause. After he first announced his

marriage to Lucy, he was emotionally crushed:

Starched and frozen by his own emotion, Pierre silently turned and quitted the chamber; and heavily descending the stairs, tramped heavily--as a man slowly bearing a great burden (p. 184).

It is with this suspension of one's inmost feelings

that Melville opens the final fifth of the book.

And though a strong man may sometimes succeed in strangling such tormenting memories; yet, if in the beginning permitted to encroach upon him unchecked, the same man shall, in the end, become as an idiot (p. 307).

He offers a hint at what Lucy's motives are as well as what

Pierre might not realize or is afraid to accept regarding his feelings for Lucy: 197

The love deep as death--what mean those five words, but that such love cannot live, and be continually remembering that the loved one is no more (p. 307)?

After that rhetorical question, Lucy is reintroduced into

the story with Melville making an immediate connection be­

tween the long absence and Pierre’s intense effort not to

think of Lucy:

If little or nothing has been said of Lucy Tartan in rference to the condition of Pierre after his departure from the Meadows, it has only been because her image did not willingly occupy his soul. He had striven his utmost to banish it thence. . . (p. 308).

However, Melville quickly modifies this staunch position by

admitting that Pierre still recognizes the effects of Lucy's

love:

the very thrillingness of the phantom made him to shun it, with all remaining might of his spirit (p. 308).

Pierre's reading of the letter (pp. 309-311) is followed by

a short encounter with Isabel which may be considered the

symbolic confrontation of the two halves of the world that

Pierre must face. However, the interruption of Isabel is

short and Pierre says almost immediately that "another is coming" (p. 312) in a voice of firm conviction. "’Lucy's emergence at the Apostles', then, may be taken as one last attempt on Melville's part to reconcile those opposing forces

that had driven his protagonists for so long: Marriage(Lucy) 198

and the Quest (Isabel)

The scene with Pierre, Millthrope, and the porter has previously been discussed, but it becomes clearer now that the torn vines around the legs of the easel are reminiscent of the former picture of Lucy while at Saddle-Meadows.

Pierre’s irritation with the porter is really the disillusion­ ment in the omen he sees. With the vines of pure nature torn at the base of the easel on which Lucy sketched the naive serenity of Saddle-Meadows, Melville implies the kind of change that has taken hold of Lucy. Just as Pierre seems to have become awakened by grief, so too has Lucy. His abhor­ rence is in his realization that Lucy is following in his spiritual footsteps just as she is following him to New

York. It is noteworthy that Lucy says in the first para­ graph of her long letter:

Grief,--deep, unspeakable grief, hath made me this seer. I could murder myself, Pierre, when I think of my previous blindness; but that only came from my swoon. It was horrible and most murdersome; but now I see thou wert right in being so instantaneous with me . . . (p. 309).

The death of her youthful innocence has brought Lucy to the same stage as Pierre was at when he departed Saddle-

Meadows. It becomes clearer from the above words by Lucy what the significance of Martha's cry was after Pierre

187 Pops, p. 112. 199

divulged his marriage to Isabel:

"Thou hast somehow murdered her; how then be her­ self again" (p. 184)?

Lucy’s new idealism goes against the very grain of her

subconscious. As Pierre, she considers only what she sees

to be the realities of life. She has found, too, the injus­

tices of society and has decided to aspire to a higher plane

hoping to save others and to protect her virtuousness at the

same time. Lucy’s error is in believing that her mission

is celestial and not selfish. She goes on pride and love,

rather than on faith and humility. Her idealism is not wrong in itself, but it is misdirected because of her rejec­

tion of the world of men which she thinks she has trans­ cended. As Stern has recognized, by giving Lucy a Welsh heritage which is classically anti-idealistic in orientation,

Melville indicates that this devotion is both devious and tenuous.138 The iast half of the letter attests to Lucy's desire for isolation and estrangement from the community of men:

Knowest then, dearest Pierre, that with every most glaring earthly reason to disbelieve in thy love; I do yet wholly give myself up to the unshakable belief in it. For I feel, that always is love love, and cannot know change, Pierre; I feel that heaven hath called me to a wonderful office toward thee. By

188 Stern, p. 159. 200

throwing me into that long, long swoon,--during which Martha tells me, I hardly ate altogether, three ordinary meals,--by that, heaven, I feel now, was preparing me for the superhuman office I speak of; was wholly estranging me from this earth, even while I yet lingered in it; was fitting me for a celestial mission in terrestrial elements (p. 310).

The confusion of what the ethical is to Lucy is obvious

from the lines above. She girds her mission in the standard

terms of morality and theology, but has rationalized them

to such a point that she will have them justify deceit, even

the slightest degree of adultery, blasphemy, and a rejection

of one’s neighbor and human brother.

The conflict is basic: by rejecting the love of being

in general, Lucy rejects Christ’s most basic of messages.

Love is the essence of Christ's religion, but that religion

does not justify the love of one and the rejection of the many. The love of being in general should be the foundation of any personal loves in this world. Through this rejection of the world and the total acceptance of the other world,

Lucy demonstrates the basic error of choosing one side over another that has characterized Pierre's fall. When Lucy

says that she can live only for him, that she asks no visible response but trusts only that her love will triumph in heaven, a terrifying quality creeps into such virtue, She is sustained by her self- sacrifice, which is so complete that she does not 201

even feel that she is making a renunciation. Her action, nevertheless, brings on the final tragedy.

The effect of Lucy's arrival is instantly seen in Pierre's violent reaction:

"Give it me!" he shouted, vehemently, extending his hand (p. 309).

Alan Lebowitz asserts that "Lucy's arrival adds notably to his perturbed state and of course precipitates the final 190 catastrophe." Although embarrassed by Stanly earlier,

Pierre has had no reason to make further contact with him.

When Lucy arrives and her mother derides Pierre and Stanly threatens him and Frederick attacks him, Pierre is necessar­ ily put on the defensive. The two letters that arrive-- calling him a lecher and a liar--move him to the irrational limits of his already perturbed mind. Although ironical that Lucy's mission of love brings death to all, it is in the method and application of love that Lucy's fault lies.

"The wrongness is the misdirection of Lucy's conscious mor­ ality. Lucy cannot be eclectic any more than any of the other questers. She has rejected one half of life which, though 191 evil in its historical forms and circumstances, is necessary."

169 Matthiessen, p. 482.

190 Lebowitz, p. 167.

191 Stern, p. 160. 202

The parallel with Pierre's past is obvious, but the

difference is in degrees. Lucy's mission was one of human

love, but her inability to cope with its immoral nature led

her to rationalize it as a divine thing--outside the rules

of man. The antinomianism of her logic is clear, but unlike

Pierre "her duty and heart do not lead her in opposite

directions."192 when Isabel speaks the fated words: "thy

sister hath murdered thee, my brother, oh my brother"(p. 369),

Lucy "realizes that her exemplar has been living a lie him­

self (just as Pierre discovered his father before him). Her

own sacrifices become the madness of another fool of virtue,

and Lucy dies."193 Lucy's lack of insight into one’s human-.'i ness and her reliance on one's pride ultimately destroy her.

She has had a social enlightenment, but no onto­ logical, no true historical enlightenment. . . . Like Pierre’s idealism and because of it, the ele­ ment of humanity that can provide the proper answers becomes misdirected by an erronious view of its own proper function and its own proper goal.

Isabel the Ambiguous

Isabel Banford is the most ambiguous character in the book. The explanations of Isabel's character can at best be

192 Bowen, p. 186.

193 Stern, p. 179.

194 stern, p. 157. 203

assumptive. The text simply is not elaborate enough to help us make more rational conclusions. The moral question which is the central issue is brought to light by her assertion of kindredship to Pierre; yet one is never certain whether her claim has substance. The validity of the charge is important in judging Isabel’s moral character. If the charge is untrue she becomes a malicious confidenee-man who ruins lives for sport. If true, she becomes guilty of encouraging incest, even if only on the mental level. Whatever the validity, however, Isabel is responsible for Pierre’s becoming an active, intellectual human being. Through Isabel and the circumstance she presents him, Pierre moves from the idyllic microcosm of paradise to the human macrocosm of New York.

Whatever Pierre does while emerging from the unreal to the real world cannot be charged, positively or negatively, to

Isabel. Isabel is only the igniting, driving force that sets Pierre off on his quest. What Pierre makes of the quest is secondary to his relationship to Isabel.

Because we cannot determine the truth of Isabel’s claim, we cannot positively judge her moral growth or deterioration.

However, because there is both good and evil inherent in the character of Isabel we can comment on those aspects.

Whether or not Isabel is honest with Pierre in her letter 204

is unknown, but if she is she shows a similar decadence in

moral character that Pierre, Lucy, Mrs. Glendinning, and

Falsgrave have exhibited. However, she is probably the

most human character because she sins as a human being and

cannot be charged with blasphemous attempts to assault the

heavens. She is not evil, but subject to evil as a human

being. She is not good, but capable of doing good at will.

Not evil herself, Isabel is of the same dark mystery that includes the necessity for sin and suffering. Like the sea in Moby-Dick, she is the dark, sad, under-side of life, the side of un-faith; and the side that cannot articulate itself. Not to be confused with man’s sensuous nature, nevertheless she stands for instinctive depths in man’s immemorial soul that are in contrast to, if not in actual conflict with, his conscious intellectual and spiri- tual processes. ■L>J

The mystery and vagueness associated with Isabel's

origins are characteristic of the gray, shadowy margin between good and evil. The necessities of her character as well as

"the necessities of the story make Isabel propose twilit

dimness instead of the blackness of night, but the figure 196 she uses points toward the void." Isabel seems more corrupt than good because of the circumstances that have befallen Pierre. Although Pierre has free will, the situ-

195 Sedgwick, pp. 153-154.

196 Stone, p. 203. 205

ation of his fall seems more grave when one considers the

Adamic nature that he has sacrificed. Isabel’s lack of definite substance is again signified by the ironies which her name suggests. Isabel, or Bell, tolls both peace and death to the world. She is the mysteriously beautiful of belle; and the unknown depths of fire, as in Baal. She is the confusion and distrust and inhumanity of war, as in bellous. She is both the offended and the offender the hunted and the hunter. She is the picture of contradiction and therefore humanity. When first seeing her) Pierre’s presentiment describes this nebulousness perfectly:

Out of the heart of mirthfulness, this shadow had come forth to him. Encircled by bandelets of light it had still beamed upon him; vaguely historic and prophetic; backward, hinting of some irrevocable sin; forward, pointing to some inevitable ill. One of those faces, which now and then appear to man, and without one word of speech, still reveal glimpses of some fearful gospel. In natural guise, but lit by supernatural light; palpable to the senses, but inscrutable to the soul; in their perfectest impres­ sion on us, ever hovering between Tartarean misery and Paradisaic beauty; such faces, compounded so of hell and heaven, overthrow in us all foregone persuasions, and make us wondering children in this world again (p. 43).

Melville caricatures Isabel as the ideal Romantic character.

Her unbound black hair and dark eyes, the guitar from which she draws strange melodies by instinct and without musical training, the general dreaminess 206

of her demeanor and behavior, the mystery about her origin and her life before her appearance at the sewing bee—all these are out of the gothic novel.197

In fact, Charles Moorman has found that in every crucial scene involving Isabel and Pierre "Melville uses the symbol of her hair to reinforce the fact of her fertility" and

198 mysteriousness. After the following account of Isabel,

Pierre is "almost deprived of consciousness by the spell flung over him by the marvellous girl":

In this act, as the long curls swept over the strings of the guitar, the strange sparks—still quivering there--caught at those attractive curls; the entire casement was suddenly wovenly illumined; then waned again; while now in the succeeding dimness, every downward undulating wave and billow of Isabel's tossed tresses gleamed here and there like a tract of phosphorescent midnight sea; and, simultaneously, all the four winds of the world of melody broke loose . . . his whole soul was swayed and tossed by the supernatural tides; and again he heard the wondrous, rebounding, changed words:

"Mystery! Mystery! Mystery of Isabel! Mystery! Mystery! Isabel and Mystery! Mystery! (p. 150)

Pierre’s whole soul is engrossed in Isabel, who like

Jezebel, might mislead him with her knowledge of deep things

197 stone, p. 201.

198 Moorman, p. 24. 207

However, Pierre’s spirit is not in Isabel’s total control.

Pierre must succumb, he must choose to be with her. "Isabel is determined to engross Pierre completely, though at the cost of denying him the fulfillment of his whole nature.”199

Isabel presents the choices as Satan may be charged to have presented the choices to Adam, but she is not as Satan because she does not intend to cause his moral downfall.

There is little to be gained by causing Pierre to fall from the place where she felt (as his sister) she should also be.

When Pierre hears Isabel's case in full he feels personally responsible for the deed charged to his father and makes his commitment:

"I stand the sweet penance in my father's stead. . . . If ever I fall from thee, dear Isabel, may Pierre fall from himself; fall back forever into vacant nothingness and night" (p. 154)!

When he does this he falls into whatever Isabel’s plan is.

If she really does think Pierre her brother, it is con­ ceivable that she feels relieved and warmed by his love. If not, she must be proud of her plan and must be looking for­ ward to its rewards. If the former of the two explanations is true, it holds the far greater moral crisis. If Isabel is Pierre’s sister, as she claims, she becomes as responsible

199 Bowen, p. 187. 208

for the sins of the flesh as Pierre. Ironically, it also attests to her humanness whereas it indicates Pierre's unwillingness to recognize his human frailty. It also tends to emphasize the same inhumanity and un-Christian Christianity that Delly finds when her God-loving community cannot find the strength to forgive her for her sins. It is in no way a concession to or an approval of sinfulness; but, it is an admission to weakness of the flesh of humanity and an assertion of the need for faith and forgiveness.

As a sister tempted by the unfamiliarity of her brother to treat him as a lover and husband, Isabel demonstrates the far-reaching horribleness of sin. She shows moral deter­ ioration if seen in this way, but, again, emphasizes the need for forgiveness and understanding. There is a definite drift in the character of Isabel in the book. The question is whether it was or was not planned by Isabel. The answer is undeterminable. "Isabel, once the humble outcast, now (in sinning) becomes the defender of social appearances."200

If the change is not contrived and genuine then Isabel’s jea­ lousy at the announcement of Lucy's coming to New York is a clear indication of her inner desires:

"Oh, I want none in the world but thee, my brother-- but thee, but thee! and, oh God! am / not enough

200 Seelye, p. 86. 209

for thee" (p. 312)?

Those clarified, we can then perceive their effects on

Isabel’s earlier pure and loving morality:

’’Then is she worthless, Pierre, whoever she be-- foolishly, madly fond!--Doth not the world know me for thy wife? . . . She shall not come! One look from me shall murder her, Pierre” (p. 313)!

When Lucy arrives, Isabel is driven to fear the loss of

Pierre. She reveals the extreme of the moral position she

has taken in contrast to her earlier portrait of the needy

sister:

"Thy hand is the caster’s ladle, Pierre, which holds me entirely fluid. Into thy forms and slightest moods of thought, thou pourest me; and I there solidify to that form, and take it on, and thenceforth wear it, till once more thou mouldest me anew” (p. 324).

If she planned to over-throw Pierre's moral character, it

is not indicated here. The converse seems evident. As his

sister she may not have thought about the physical charms of

Pierre affecting her but is now willing to accept the truth

and sacrifice herself to sin. If, on the other hand, she

is not his sister then this speech is a masterful bit of

acting and deceit. Isabel’s attempted suicide can be explained in the same way. It can be a way of convincing

Pierre that she loves him and that her original story is true. Similarly, Isabel may be dramatically staging the whole thing to gain Pierre's confidence as well as making 210

Lucy feel uncomfortable enough to be forced to leave New York.

The final scene is no help whatsoever in resolving Isabel's true motives. Pierre gives Isabel no chance to refuse. He

"seizes" her and holds her firmly in his "grasp" and "tears" the vial of poison from her breasts and decides that it is enough "for thee and me" (p. 360)1 There is no explanation which tells of any attempt to accept or reject Pierre's ver­ dict. There is no mention of when and in what manner the poison was consumed. Therefore, it cannot be determined whether Isabel died forcibly or willingly. Her dying words are those of a lover, but by this time no matter what Isabel’s earlier motives were, her role was now that of sister-lover or devil-lover. ZJf

CHAPTER FIVE: THE MINOR CHARACTERS

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

"The Second Coming"--W. B. Yeats

There are no "minor" characters in Pierre, in the usual sense of the term. All the characters take an active part in the movement of the story. But there are several who have limited exposure throughout the work, who have played only figuratively in the development of Pierre, Lucy, and Isabel, and whose periodic appearances are symbolic of some moral quality or point of view rather than providing a well-drawn, fully illuminated character.

Each character in the story finds himself representing stable or fluctuating positions on an ever-ascending gyre.

The center of the vortex representing the standard of human behavior and existence (a balance of good and evil), each character, when properly defined, in turn represents the degree of deviation from the norm. As Pierre and later

Lucy (and maybe Isabel, depending on the interpretation of the validity of her claim) pass each point on their ascending 212

quests which have originated at the base of the axis, they move in a spherical, upward motion. This gyration accounts for their movement from one extreme to another during the course of the story. (A movement from left to right extreme while simultaneously moving upward, i.e., leaving Falsgrave’s religion to speak to God directly but in the meantime meeting

Plinlimmon, then Charlie, then Plinlimmon, then Stanly.)

While on the side of each extreme, Pierre examines the prin­ ciples carefully for validity, but in the end rejects them all because of his insatiable mobility of spirit. It also explains their respectively increasing rate of rejection due to the two dimensional (widening and heightening) movement away from mankind. This spiraling action accounts, too, for the increasing disgust that Pierre, Lucy, and Isabel feel for man and his God. Because of this upward impetus, they force themselves farther from the core (heart) of hu­ manity and conclude by isolating themselves and despising all that is the community of man. (For instance, note that

Pierre comes to be able to tolerate only the desolate, dark alleys near the wharves; Lucy rejects family, suitors, and

God to become a female Enceladus. Predictably, they all suffer somewhat the same fates in the end.) Obviously, then, the farther each character moves from accepting the human 213

condition, the greater is his egoism, skepticism, and lack of faith in God. The more he aspires to gain the divine on his own, while a physical, mortal being, the more he insults the spiritual at the top-most infinity (God) of the spire.

Thus, the irony and ambiguity that plague the main characters in Pierre is the result of their intermediate positions some­ where between the two edges of the spiral: they are neither

Gods nor Men. They have, because of their rejection (faith­ lessness), been rejected by both the finite and infinite.

Then, in this sense, the "minor” characters are not minor at all. Their roles (positions on the spiral) become vital marking posts by which the reader can gauge the pri­ mary characters’ gradual disintegration ■ of faith in Man and God.

Plotinus Plinlimmon: A Moral Zero

The case of Plotinus Plinlimmon is the most unusual of the minor characters. He is seen little more than the others and yet much attention has to be given his role in the story. Many critics have given highly detailed accounts of Plinlimmon’s importance to the narrative as well as his symbolic role. "The weight of criticism appears to sup-

201 C.f., Thompson, Stern, Moorman, Watkins, Dichmann, O’Connor. 214

port the view that the Plinlimmon episode is satirical and that Pierre's genuine innocence places the blame for his plight and final catastrophe on the shortcomings of socie­

ty." 202 What has not been emphasized, however, is the fact that "the sleazy works that went under his name, were nothing more than verbal things, taken down at random, and bunglingly methodised by his young disciples" (p. 290). The hint seems clear enough: Plinlimmon is a philosopher who has not or­ dered his philosophy. He is, in his very character, a contradiction in terms. Just as he is an unphilosophical philosopher, he is an inhuman human.

He is committed to nothing, and to nothing he with­ draws. ... He locks himself away with the truth because his only identity is the repose which is the neutral balance between reality and realization, between preservation and annihilation--the balance of the Memnon Stone, the balance of zero.

Plinlimmon represents the final degree of neutrality on the spiral: he is neither God nor Man. Yet, he must insu­ late himself from others around him who may try to disturb this delicate balance because although he may be the defi­ nition of God, he is not God. In his isolation from man he

202 James E. Miller. A Reader's Guide to Herman Mel­ ville. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1962, pp. 119-120.

203 Stern, p. 192. 215

may be God, but in his mortality his attempt at the inevit­ able isolation of a God from man becomes the epitome of selfishness and hate. ’’Though he is free from the taint of political opportunism, his chilly isolation damns him. Had he a heart . . . Plinlimmon’s withdrawal into a Burtonian character might be somewhat mitigated, but to withdraw from 0 A/ human affection is in effect to die."

Plinlimmon has come, long ago, to understand what his cold stare communicates to Pierre. In the litany of ’’Vain!

Fool! Quit!" (p. 293) Plinlimmon warns against extreme idealism, but at the same time speaks ironically from the most extreme absolute position of noncommitment. The romance is certainly an effort to trace Pierre’s moral decay, but we cannot be led to assume that Pierre achieves Plinlim­ mon 's position on the gyre because of his separation from humanity. Pierre lives by the heart (p. 91) and Plinlimmon entirely by the head.

Pi. erre at least /has a/ positive moral center. /His/ morality might have been Satanic or angelic, but even /his/ final amorality stemmed from human aspiration. But Plinlimmon does not care that either man-self or one-self should prove its equality 205 with Time. He does not care that he does not care.

204 Seelye, p. 82.

205 Stern, p. 194. 216

Speculation beyond this point is useless regarding Pierre’s

further fate. If he loses faith in his ego which is driving

him onward, he may become truly neuter--a moral zero--as

Plinlimmon has become. Plinlimmon sees zero value in all

moral codes because he accepts evil as the universal fact

that underlies all of man’s nature. "Foolishly and naively,

Pierre denies the existence of evil. Whereas Plinlimmon

believes that the world is so depraved that it must follow

only on earthly or horological truth, Pierre believes in the

ultimate abolition of all evil.”*u On this account we can

also see the validity of the parallel of Lucy’s moral decay

with that of Pierre's. She, too, lives by the heart and

answers to her presentiments and benevolently returns to

New York to redeem Pierre from the cold rationalsim which

that city represents and in which Plinlimmon and his apostles

thrive.

Although the system of logic and philosophical develop­ ment is highly questionable in the pamphlet called Plin­

limmon’s, we must not rely too heavily that this is Plotinus' word in total. With little question can we attribute the general arguments to Plinlimmon as well as the overall mood of selfishness and concentration on the singular man instead

2^6 Watkins, p. 44. 217

of man, in general. We can learn more about the moral

position Plinlimmon exemplifies by simply watching him.

Pierre remembers that Plinlimmon’s face was one of repose,

repose neither divine nor human, nor anything made up of either or both--but a repose separate and apart, a repose of a face by itself (p. 291).

One cannot predict Plinlimmon because he is singular, he is

"not included in the scheme of the Universe" (p. 291). He

returns the gift of books, paper, and pen which one would

asstime to be the tools of a philosopher who wanted to discover

the Truths for man, and instead asks "for some Choice Cura- coa" (p. 291). Common to his Flemish hate for absolutism,

Plinlimmon claims virtuous expediency to be man’s only hope for sane survival:

"I thought that the society of which you are the head, excluded all things of that sort," replied the Count. "Dear Count, so they do; but Mohammed hath his own dispensation." "Ah! I see," said the noble scholar archly. "I am afraid you do not see, dear Count," said Plinlimmon . . . (p. 291).

"Plinlimmon is another version of relativistic evasion, who prefers to play his flute for his own entertainment instead of circulating in the world. He is pure intellect, all

'head,' and his heart has atrophied." 207

207 Seelye, p. 81. 218

Tyrus Hillway has pointed out that the Plinlimmon

morality is not unique to Pierre in the Melville canon, but

was foreshadowed in Mardi and more fully developed in The

Confidence-Man.208

In the philosophy of the pamphlet '’If," Melville has

given his clearest statement of the relativist’s and the

confidence man’s position. Arguments still rage over where

the author's intent points, but one can have little doubt

if he sees it as a needed attempt on the part of the isolato

to justify his course of action or inaction. The pamphlet

is the converse of the teleological suspension of the ethical

because it epitomizes a man’s faith in himself instead of

his recognizing the existence of any higher benevolent power.

The very fact that Pierre, at first, rejects the article as worthless, but later returns to it when his moral self begins

to give in to his pride, is significant of the pamphlet’s

invalidity. Melville’s continual description of the essay

in the terms of decay and disease might offer another hint to its infeasibility:

It was a thin, tattered, dried-fish-like thing; printed with blurred ink upon mean, sleazy paper (p. 206).

208 Hillway, p. 202. 219

Melville's, "doubtless, it was something vastly profound"

(p. 207), is sarcastic in tone and leaves a bitter taste

with the reader as he encounters the dissertation (Book XIV,

Section ii).

Melville could formulate these distinctions but his heart was not in them. . . .To that careful cold­ ness had his doctrine seemingly brought Plinlimmon. And Melville, by his recognition that "Bacon’s brains were mere watchmaker's brains, but Christ was a chronometer," asserted his desire, almost in Blake's terms, for the older fullness of imagina­ tion and passion.209

Melville shifts back to a strong traditionalism by rejecting

Plinlimmon's expediency and by showing him to be only a

selfish, smooth-talking, confidence-man. Melville shows that

"Plinlimmon loves to paraphrase passages from The Holy Bible,

and frequently, when he does, Plinlimmon inverts the conven-

tional meaning to serve his shallow purposes." Melville

is not at all generous with the philosopher, but he does let his words take on a semblance of logic and meaning to show how even the greatly twisted non-systems of unphilosophical philosophy are blindly accepted and followed. Lawrance

Thompson has summed up Plinlimmon's position on the dehuman­ izing spiral mentioned earlier:

209 Matthiessen, p. 471.

210 Thompson, p. 277. 220

Observe that Melville has caused Plinlimmon to warp and twist to his own uses not only the words and meaning of Christ but also that familiar concept of Time which is asserted in Christian doctrine, in Platonic doctrine, even in the Neoplatonic doctrine of that third-century Plotinus after whom Melville’s crackpot is named. Imitating his creator, Melville has again made foolish the wisdom of the world. In all seriousness, many Christian theologians (starting with the Apostle Paul) have made moral sermons out of the difference between "Man's Time" and "God's Time." Plato and the Neoplatonists did much the same thing. In this world, "Time" and "Change" are closely related; in the next world, "Eternity" and "Steadfastness" are closely related. The obvious possibilities for moral extension, there, have been played for a good thing by many preachers and poets. . . . Intent on satirizing Christian doctrine, Mel­ ville merely pounced on this Christian-Platonic con­ cept of Time and contrived his own extensions, in naughty and satirical fashion. Although Plinlimmon's ethical position may seem to be quite decidedly anti-Christian, it will be found that his arguments eventually illuminate exactly that pattern of conduct represented by the shallow /italics mine/ Christians in the narrative: Mrs. Glendinning and Rev. Falsgrave. Thus, one effect which Melville achieves in perpetrating the seeming nonsense of "Chronologicals and Horologicals" is a caustic and satirical representation of those ethical rules of conduct by which, according to Melville's viewpoint, the majority of professed and professing Christians in his day governed their conduct: rules of practicality, profitableness, expediency.

Reverend Falsgrave and Glen Stanly:

Unions of Opposites

Plotinus Plinlimmon cannot be cited as the best example of virtuous expediency in the book, however, because of his preoccupation with passiveness and noncommitment. His

211 Thompson, pp. 275-276. 221

doctrines of materialism and utilitarianism are better

exemplified by Falsgrave and Glen Stanly. It seems odd to

speculate that Melville (or any reader) could conclude that virtuous expediency is the answer to the world's ills when

two such hypocrites are its best representatives. Because of their presence "the validity of horological behavior is negated. . . .”212

One may recall that it was the image of Falsgrave that

Pierre grew to equate with his father's moral character.

The minister was "held up to Pierre as a splendid example of the polishing and gentlemanising influences of Chris­ tianity" (p. 98), but there is something perceptibly strange about Falsgrave--yet not disturbing. He is not the picture of humility, abstention, and of worldly denial that is the archetypal clergyman. He is somehow the union of opposites.

The initial description of Falsgrave (pp. 97-98) gives us no concrete idea of his physical character. He is simply the unity of the "daintiness of the fingers . . . with a generally manly aspect" (p. 98). Melville tells us that "his graceful motions had the undulatoriness of melodious sounds. You almost thought you heard, not saw him" (p. 98).

Falsgrave's unsubstantialness is emphasized by his time in life, the penumbral years between youth

212 Moorman, pp. 572-573. 222

and middle age, when character has an indefinable quality. . . . Although darkened by the image of gaunty, vice-ridden old age, the portrait of Fals­ grave is intended to be taken as one of sweetness and light. . . . The reader has no idea of what Falsgrave looks like--he is all halo and music, light and sound.2^3

The expectation is, then, that this clergyman is of

sterling character, but in reality we come to find that he

has a heart of solid, cold silver. Early in the introduction

to him, we are told that his character was not crafty, "but

peculiarly insinuating" (p. 98), which preceeds the phrase

"silver-keyed person" merely by eight words. The insinuation

is that what we see on the surface and expect to act typically

is only an assumption and that the reality of Falsgrave’s heart is something quite different.

The clergyman is, thus, ironically associated with the silver of idolatry and the payment of Christ’s betrayal. He

is not the substance of the Church’s foundation, but the cause of its failure. "The Reverend Mr. Falsgrave, . . . who is not ’too warm’ like Pierre nor ’too cold’ like Mrs.

Glendinning, clearly stands for the church at Laodicia.

The Laodician church in every age submits itself to conven­ tional Society. . . ."214 Th£s representative of the social

213 Seelye, p. 79.

214 Chase, p. 133. 223

gospel taken to its farthest extreme is highly aware of

society's demands and he capitulates whenever and wherever

he can. Falsgrave's position in man's world becomes more

valuable than that in God's world because he has lost sight

of the temporality of the former. He relates selfishly to

the moment:

Before him also, stood the generous foundress and the untiring patroness of the beautiful little marble church, consecrated by the good Bishop, not four years gone by. Before him also, stood-- though in polite disguise—the same untiring bene­ factress, from whose purse, he could not help sus­ pecting, came a great part of his salary, nominally supplied by the rental of the pews (p. 97).

Falsgrave's role as a clergyman is actually the role of a

corrupt, graft-taking religious politician. He plays out

every situation and circumstance for what it is worth to him. He accepts the invitation to breakfast with the Glen­

dinnings because he knows what Mary can do for him and he beams all during the meal in order to play the role of dignity to the hilt because "he was conscious that Mrs.

Glendinning entertained a particular partiality for him. . ."

(p. 97). "There is benevolence not in Falsgrave's heart but only in his mind, and his moral estimates wait upon social 91 S appraisal.

215 Seelye, pp. 79-80. 224

Not wholly perceiving the insinuation of Falsgrave’s character, Pierre feels "that if any living being was capable of giving him worthy counsel in his strait; and if to anyone he could go with Christian propriety and some small hopeful­ ness, that person was the one before him" (p. 99). But, as the scene at the breakfast table grows more intense, Pierre begins to see through the surface of the minister's role into the heart of the man. It is obvious from the beginning of the scene what Falsgrave’s advice will be in regard to the

Ned/Delly Ulver case. Before Falsgrave is admitted into the house, Mary asserts her opinion on the matter which will necessarily become that of the clergyman:

I was at the parsonage yesterday, to see him about that wretched affair of Delly, and we are finally to settle upon what is to be done this morning. But my mind is made up concerning Ned; no such profligate shall polute this place; nor shall the disgraceful Delly (p. 96).

Mary knows with whom she is dealing and perceives exactly what she must do in order to gain the public sanction of the

Church in this matter. Falsgrave capitulates and after a long discussion declares his resignation to the will and demands of the monarch of Saddle-Meadows. The Church becomes subservient to the State under the Divine Right of

Kings: 2225

"No more, no more, madam,” said the clergyman. "Madam? Pray don't madam me any more, Mr. Falsgrave: I have a sudden hatred for that title." "Shall it be Your Majesty, then?" said the clergyman, gallantly; "the May Queens are so styled, and so should be the Queens of October" (p. 103).

Later after Pierre's announcement of marriage to Isabel, Mrs.

Glendinning asks Falsgrave to come to her bedroom to talk with her about the matter. It is interesting to consider the social impropriety of the meeting place; yet, Falsgrave does go. It is ironic that the subject discussed is immorality and social disgrace. When Mary calls on the clergyman to supply theological solutions to the dilemma, he balks because of his desire to remain noncommittal in socially debatable issues:

"I confess my cloth hath no consolation for thee yet awhile. Permit me to withdraw from thee, leaving my best prayers for thee, that thou mayst know some peace, ere this now shut-out sun goes down. Send for me whenever thou desirest me.—May I go now?" "Begone! and let me not hear thy soft, mincing voice, which is an infamy to a man! Begone, thou helpless, and unhelping one" (p. 194)!

Falsgrave remained perfectly neutral on the issue of Ned and Delly, too. Beside a few "assenting" head gestures and' points of rational clarification as well as quotation of

Biblical scripture, Falsgrave adds little to the debate.

When Pierre asks if the legitimate child should shun the illegitimate when one father is the father of both, Falsgrave 226

delivers a one hundred and ninety-eight word sololiquy on why he cannot offer an answer. His answer contradicts his profession: living life by the thoughts of Christ. He says in his conclusion:

"Millions of circumstances modify all moral questions; so that though conscience may possibly dictate freely in any known special case; yet, by one universal maxim, to embrace all moral contingencies,--this is not only impossible, but the attempt, to me, seems foolish" (p. 102).

"Institutionalized religion, as symbolized by Fals­ grave (wonderful name!), concerns itself largely with evasion of important moral issues and the protection of its benefices. Melville takes the trouble to elucidate in symbolical form the union of worldliness with the latent heavenliness of the Church when he describes the intertwining serpent and dove in the cameo brooch on the clergyman’s bosom.216

It is the symbol of Plinlimmon’s relativism worn ironically by one who is devoted to spiritual goodness. In Pierre’s final encounter with Falsgrave we see again the clergyman’s desire not to get entrapped in Christ’s dilemma. He will not deviate from what has been proclaimed and confirmed by the society that supports him. In answer to Pierre’s ques­ tion of "what have thou and my mother decided concerning

Delly Ulver?" Falsgrave confirms that:

216 Hillway, p. 204. 227

"She is to depart the neighbourhood; why, her own parents want her not" (p. 163).

Not convinced that Falsgrave recognizes the full magnitude

of that decision, Pierre batters him with questions concer­

ning the moral ramifications of the decision. Falsgrave, in

his dignified, serene manner, chides Pierre for disturbing him at such an indecent hour and solidifies his social

position:

"Mr. Glendinning, I will not now make any mention of my natural astonishment at this most unusual call, and the most extraordinary time of it. Thou hast sought information upon a certain point, and I have given it to thee, to the best of my knowledge. All thy after and incidental questions, I choose to have no answer for. I will be most happy to see thee at any other time, but for the present thou must excuse my presence. Good night, sir" (p. 163).

"When confronted by the demands of Christly Pierre, Falsgrave, like the archetypal politician, Pilate, can only ask 'what is

Truth?'--an equivocation, not a question. As Pierre himself is eventually to discover, only gods can move with 'godly freedom. ”’217

Falsgrave exemplifies the expedient ethic that Plin­ limmon's pamphlet discusses. His place on the spherical diagram is juxtaposed to that of Plinlimmon's, but there does exist an essential difference between them. Plinlimmon

217 Seelye, p. 80. 228

is decidedly neuter. He cares not for man and his society,

but lives in it to survive. He has no interaction with it,

yet lives off it. This parasitic behavior is easily seen

in Falsgrave, too, but he seems not aware of his own decep­

tion. He believes that he is "a man of God," yet lives a

hypocritical, worldly life. Falsgrave demonstrates his

humanness throughout and it is to be noted that Pierre

confirms this in his last comment to him. Plinlimmon has

seen his humanness petrify and turn into the cold neutrality

of the inanimate. "In his time serving, the blind and unchristian 'Christian’ man of God serves a God whose real

identity he rejects. He leads indeed to a false grave,

for death does not lead to what his hypocritically used o i o Christian idealism espouses.n^J-°

Mary Glendinning: Ruler of a Social Theocracy

The character of Mary Glendinning is a static one which shows no sign of change at any time in the book. The very personality of Pierre's mother makes it impossible for her to concede on anything at any time. The most striking thing about Mary is her dominance over the people around her. She never refers to Falsgrave, for instance, as Reverend, but

218 Stern, p. 191. 229

Mister and he always took his cues (as did everyone else)

from the will of Mrs. Glendinning. She considered Pierre á

"good boy" because he listened to her and she felt something

terrible happening when Pierre asserted his own opinions.

Lucy is a proper match for Pierre according to Mary because

she is docile, just as is Pierre. Mary is indeed the monarch

of Saddle-Meadows and the controlling force of that world.

She condemns Ned as a possible polluter of her world and

says Delly should be expelled because of her immorality.

After Pierre has received the letter from Isabel and is suf­

fering from fits of depression, Mary is bothered. He is not

docile, but frighteningly deep in thought and therefore a

potential threat to her kingdom. In an attempt to find out

what "this haggard thing" is that possesses Pierre she turns

from her role as mother-sister to mother-Queen:

"Sister me not, now, Pierre;--I am thy mother." "Well, then, dear mother, thou art quite as incomprehensible to me as I to--" "Talk faster, Pierre--this calmness freezes me. . . . Thou art my son, and I command thee" (p. 95).

"Pierre’s mother is generally described in images of royality.

Many of these images refer to the power of Eastern monarchs,

who in Melville’s characteristic imagery are associated 219 with a heaven-defying, prideful tyranny."

Moorman, pp. 14-15. 230

Mrs. Glendinning’s pride is the most memorable of all

the elements of her person.

Mary Glendinning was a woman, and with more than the ordinary vanity of women (p. 15).

Her narcissistic interest in her son and her vanity in her :.u beauty and power become her most identifiable traits.'

Mrs. Glendinning symbolises that part of the Puritan American inheritance which is compounded of pride, of respectable goodness, of power, and of possessive affection; and later when the hour of his initia­ tion and his trial has come, Pierre too plainly sees: "that not his mother had made his mother; but the 220 Infinite Haughtiness had first fashioned her. . .

Mary's pride is manifested in many ways throughout the story.

Pierre is her chief pride because she can glory in his handsomeness and achievement. Saddle-Meadows and its heri­

tage as well as the sacred family geneology is an ever­ present source of encouragement to Mrs. Glendinning's pride.

The matter of the chair portrait and drawing-room portrait gives.,an excellent look at Mary's pride infecting her logic and view of reality and the world around her. She chooses to look only at the picture which portrays her husband in the most suitable of poses—she rejects that in the drawing-room as something which looks nothing like her husband and bears only the rascality of its creator. She chooses her realism

220 Watson, pp. 199-200. 231

selectively. She guards the environment of her idyllic sur­

roundings with the concentration and sense of duty common to

sentries and kings:

She was a noble creature, but formed chiefly for gilded propensities of life, and hitherto mostly used to its unruffled serenities; bred and expanded, in all developments, under the sole influence of hereditary forms and world-usages. Not his refined, courtly, loving, equabale mother, Pierre felt, could unreservedly, and like a heaven's heroine, meet the shock of his extraordinary emergency, and applaud, to his heart's echo, a sublime resolve, whose exe­ cution should call down the astonishment and the jeers of the world (p. 89).

The rule of her life is pride. She was born into it and has been nurtured by it and it has so swollen that it now over­ whelms everything she touches. "The changeless position of

Queen Mary . . . allows her the self-delusion that she is set apart from and above mankind and time. (Even her servant, whom the young Pierre so gaily orders about, is the old man, 221 Dates)." When pondering the nature of the problem that has gripped Pierre, Mary lets down her defenses momentarily and lets us peer into her private thoughts:

"Sometimes I have feared that my pride would work me some woe incurable, by closing both my lips, and varnishing all my front, where I perhaps ought to be wholly in the melted and invoking mood. . . . I will live my nature out. I will stand on pride. I will not budge. Let come what will, I shall

221Stern, p. 167. 232

not half-way run to meet it, to beat it off. Shall a mother abase herself before her stripling boy? Let him tell me of himself, or let him slide adown" (p. 94)!

This haughty stand, this pride-filled stubbornness is much earlier foreshadowed in her attitude in regard to the Delly

Ulver affair: ’’For my part, as I loathe the man, I loathe the woman, and never desire to behold the child” (p. 101).

Ironically it is out of love for his mother that Pierre first conceives of his planned deception, because he realizes that "she never would have permitted Isabel Banford in her true character to cross her threshold" (p. 179). But because of this same acknowledged pride, Pierre knows that

"to admit Isabel, /is./ now to exclude Pierre" (p. 179). The evil implicit in the brand of love nurtured at Saddle-Meadows surfaces, therefore, when Pierre, out of love, causes his mother’s death and when his mother banishes him and all hopes to continue the Glendinning name. She says, "Beneath my roof, and at my table, he who was once Pierre Glendinning no more puts himself" (p. 185).

When Pierre chooses his course of action and goes against the grain of society, he necessarily declares war on all that his mother stands for; ironically his mother becomes his greatest mortal enemy. The resolve of Mary Glendinning to any course of action is always total and irrevocable and, 233

therefore, her separation from her son is final. She dies

in grief and insanity without ever seeing him again. Yet,

it is of some interest to study Mary's one reaction to the

criticism of an outsider regarding Pierre's actions. She

demonstrates an intense pride in her family and will not

permit others to smear the name. Mary defends Pierre in

order to defend herself and to maintain her rank and social

dominance when Martha refers to him as an accursed reptile:

"Thy own tongue blister the roof of thy mouth!" cried Mrs. Glendinning, in a half-stifled, whispering scream. "Tis not for thee, hired one, to rail at my son, though he were Lucifer, simmering in Hell! Mend thy manners, minx!" And she left the chamber, dilated with her unconquerable pride, leaving Martha aghast at such venom in such beauty (p. 200).

It is not New York that leads to Pierre's downfall, but ironically Saddle-Meadows. Mary Glendinning represents the social hypocrite who lives in images and maintains the fallacy of those images until they become accepted as real­ ity. Saddle-Meadows is never intended to represent reality.

It is the converse of New York and is therefore shown to be only a plastic paradise created by the Glendinnings.

It is not Paradise, but is a fantasyland made to look like

Paradise. However, its people are real and bear all of the human traits of fallibility and finiteness that the inhabi- 234

tants of New York possess. Therefore, one who is deluded

by this Paradise and is suddenly confronted by the reality

of New York exposes himself and becomes increasingly vul­ nerable to its wiles. The world of the Glendinning’s empha­

sizes moral and physical strength, but to the degree that

it is needed or called upon by the life at Saddle-Meadows.

It does not emphasize universal strength and faith--the city is the cauldron of evil and one has to be very selective of the people who live there. The Kingdom of Saddle-Meadows really is the Realm of Insecurity and Faithlessness. Warped by its own standards and content to live within its own rotting heritage, the Glendinnings become progressively vulnerable and weak as is indicated by the threat to the lineage. Mary Glendinning is the recipient of a long-spon­ sored lie and is willing to live in it. In her devotion to the lie of Saddle-Meadows she destroys her son and herself.

The lie she lives by, she dies by. The paradox is completed by the thought that Mary, the Queen, dies a broken, soul- gnarled maid.

Pierre's mother represents that cycle on the spiral that is still very close to its human origin, but is on the extreme side of social absolutism. Mary's devotion to her cause never carries her high enough to assault God directly 235

or to deny her humanity. Mary’s life is dependent on her humanity and the subserviant humans around her. This is the priceless source of her glory. She is the point from which Pierre embarks and rebells and is necessarily opposite his spiritual absolutism. Yet, both are absolute and indepen­ dent of modifications, and are therefore evil. Mary’s sin of pride is human and explainable and its effects are in many ways more damaging than is that of Pierre. However,

Pierre’s pride moves him into debate with the heavenly prin­ ciples of God, becomes blasphemous, and leads to his becoming a faithless, angry and doomed Enceladus. Mary’s preoccupa­ tion with her social image and that of her family disallows her opportunities for thorough philosophical considerations of life. She handles moral issues as a matter of common sense: "Ask the world . . .and ask your own heart" (p. 101), and thinks no more seriously about her religion than any other well-guarded social institution whose slogans and maxims must be mouthed and flaunted. Christianity is just a part of the heritage and one is a good Christian as long as he knows the maxims taught and displays his knowledge of the history of Christ. Practice of the Faith is another thing which is achieved by degree and common social sense, as in the case of the decision to expell Delly Ulver. With the 236

death of Mary Glendinning and the end of the family bloodline,

the story of Paradises on earth is told. Again, Melville

drives home the point of man’s finite nature and his inabi­

lity to achieve the divine through worldly and rational means by destroying the idyllic serenity that we are introduced to at the beginning of the book. It is not in the fact that

Saddle-Meadows is destroyed that Melville gains thematic power, but in finding the decadent immoral nature of Babel in the Eden of Saddle-Meadows.

Minor Characters as Moral Extremes

Glendinning Stanly, Frederic Tartan, Delly Ulver,

Charlie Millthrope, and Mrs. Tartan all represent opposite extremes of other characters in the book. Their main purpose is to provide unity and symmetry to the structure as well as to give positive and negative reference points by which judg­ ments and estimations can be made of the other characters.

All of these characters help, also, to chart Pierre’s drift from humanity and the many changes that come about because of his isolation. Melville is certainly telling the story of the hopelessness of ideal principles if they are not bol­ stered by faith in God. Melville’s theme of illusion vs. reality helps to account, too, for the presence of some of these characters. It is made clear that Pierre is ostra- 237

cized from the community because he will not conform to their instrumental philosophy or their pragmatic logic and morality. He is judged by his society by making comparisons of his attitudes to those around him; his are less reason­ able and, therefore, he must be wrong. Thus, the value of these characters is again shown. By providing these points of comparison, the reader can see how Pierre is driven to accepting his final isolation.

Pierre would be a tragic.¡hero if he had only relied on faith and not challenged God; he would have become a victim of an unfeeling, cold society. However, there are no heroes and no romantic portraits of a faithful, charitable, Christian society. The more one looks into the book, the bleaker this world without faith becomes. "The more one explores the book’s characters, the more one finds that identity is prag­ matically judged, in a fine parallel to the total view of the book's anti-idealism.”222

Symbolic of Pierre's reversal is his murdering of Glen­ dinning Stanly, his alter-ego. Stanly has usurped all that was Pierre Glendinning's: heritage, money, position, Lucy, and Saddle-Meadows. Not only in his natural hatred of Glen

222 Stern, p. 187. 238

for this (p. 289) but also for Glen’s refusal to help him and his cousin’s denial of their acquaintance, Pierre relishes his death.

’’Glendinning Stanly,, thou disown'st Pierre not so abhorrently as Pierre does thee. By heaven, had I a knife, Glen, I could prick thee on the spot; let out all thy Glendinning blood, and then sew up the vile remainder. Hound, and base blot upon the general humanity” (p. 239).

Glen’s death is speechless sweet, too, because he now repre­ sents everything that Pierre must loathe. Further,

It has been remarked that in the reversal of the name "Glendinning” and in the fact that both "Pierre" and "Stanly" ultimately derive from words meaning "stone," that Glen is Pierre’s alter-ego; and in fact, Glen is precisely what Pierre is not--a scoun­ drel and a sophisticate; mannered, continentally educated, and at home in fashionable New York society. Glen is, in effect, Pierre's wickedly opposing self, the Pierre who not only would violate Lucy’s "secret inner shrine" and commit "murder" there but who „„„ 223 would, by marrying her, commit legalized rape as well.

Stanly represents the respectable hedonist who is wise enough to recognize the sanctions of society but yet is crafty enough to sublimate his activities enough to please himself and those around him. Glen is the portrait of the hollow man, living in pretense and reaping all the worldly, selfish bene­ fits he can from a half-conscious, hypocritical world. "Glen, who pretends friendship only to betray, is Judas to Pierre's

223 Pops, p. 112. 239

Christ, and like the other ambiguous characters who surround

/Pierr^/, is depicted in contrasting terms.”224

The dandy and the man; strength and effeminacy; courage and indolence, were so strangely blended in this superb-eyed youth, that at first sight, it seemed impossible to decide whether there was any genuine mettle in him, or not (p. 238).

After Pierre arrives in New York, the characters that

he comes in contact with all offer the reader points of con­

trast with what was Pierre Glendinning at Saddle-Meadows.

Through Glen Stanly an insight into Pierre's youthful,

but formerly unknown inner self, is seen. Charlie Millthrope

offers a similar parallel, but from the opposite moral pole

of the past. Millthorpe is a picture of naivete and inno­ cence. Pierre’s estimation of him is ironic:

"Plus heart, minus head . . . Now, by heaven! the god that made Millthrope was both a better and a greater than the god that made Napoleon or Byron.— Plus head, minus heart--Pah! the brains grow maggoty without a heart; but the heart’s the preserving salt itself, and can keep sweet without the head (p. 320).

Pierre recognizes the needed human factor, the heart, as he did at Saddle-Meadows, "The heart! the heart! 'tis God's anointed; let me pursue the heart" (p. 91); but Pierre is at a point in his life when he thinks that mankind is a bug­ bear and that to live is to die. Charlie’s manner is as

224 Seelye, p. 82. 240

carefree and simple as Pierre’s ever was at Saddle-Meadows.

His philosophical understanding of things is no more sophis­

ticated than: "the whole world's a trick. Know the trick

of all, all’s right; don't know, all’s wrong" (p. 319).

Although seemingly involved in life, Charlie just floats in

it. He doesn’t care to examine it because in his small

understanding of things he has convinced himself that that

is all there is to know. The picture of his general char­

acter is loose and unrestricted and somewhat eccentric.

He trips through life as awkwardly as a puppet on a string

and his demeanor is an indication of his intellectual

character:

"Addios, my boy. Take care of yourself!" . . . the door was abruptly closed; and singing Fa, la, la: Millthrope in his seedy coat went tripping down the corridor (p. 320).

His innocence is comparable to the scene at Saddle-Meadows when the childish Pierre questioned, but didn’t understand, his aunt Dorothea's explanation of the portrait of his father

(pp. 74-82). In the same way, Charlie cannot hope to under­ stand or even perceive Pierre's mental condition or his impending doom.

Charlie is the most unselfish disciple of Plotinus

Plinlimmon's followers because he really doesn't understand 241

what Plinlimmon*s virtuous expediency is all about. He is

awed by the image and follows it blindly just as little

Pierre followed the example of his father. "Charlie Mill­

thrope is a good and heartful man, but he is an unconscious

child. He has not earned the right to sum up Pierre in a

final statement. ... So Melville has Isabel repudiate 225 Millthrope." In that finale of death Charlie innocently believes that Pierre has died because of despondency and other worldly tribulations. He does not have the intel­

lectual equipment to understand the greater dimensions of the problem:

"The dark vein’s burst, and here’s the deluge- wreck--all stranded here! Ah, Pierre! my old companion, Pierre; school-mate-play-mate--friend!--Our sweet boys’ walks within the woods!--Oh, I would have ral­ lied thee, and banteringly warned thee from thy too moody ways, but you woulds’t never heed! What scournful innocence rests on thy lips, my friend!-- Hand scorched with murderer’s powder, yet how woman- soft ¡--By heaven, these fingers move!--one speechless clasp!--all's o'er" (p. 362)!

Although only a phantom of a character, Frederic Tartan is an important symbolic mediator between the characters of

Charlie and Glen. By the design of the plot, Frederic is necessarily at odds with Pierre. He is the picture of mili­ tary decorum and chivalric morality. Even though hostile to

225 Stern, p. 180. 242

the point of murderous intent, Frederic gives evidence that morality and adherence to the law survives in Pierre's world.

He offers a point of hope and represents the human balance of furious passion and spiritual passion. His actions are always the same and devoted to the same principles. He is the elder brother and considers it his filial duty to insure

Lucy's virtue. In the scene that was discussed earlier

(where Frederic does not recognize Pierre as a childhood playmate), he was incensed at the impropriety of Pierre's advances toward his sister. When he later encounters Pierre in New York as Lucy first arrived at the Apostles, he chal­ lenges Pierre's scruples as those of a tempting devil:

"Villain!—Damn thee!" cried Frederic; and letting go the hand of his sister, he struck fiercely at Pierre. . . . "Thou hast bewitched, thou damned juggler, the sweetest angel! Defend thyself" (p. 325)!

Frederic is the picture of manliness and sportmanship. When he is told by Glen that Pierre is unarmed he resheathes his rapier and begins to assault him physically. Frederic is finally expelled by ten men ("twenty hands") from the Apos­ tles sanctuary. Obviously, Melville is trying to emphasize the fury and devotion to his cause as well as Frederic's strength and ability to defend himself. It is in this blind devotion that Frederic's humanity is found. Frederic's flaw 243

is similar to that of Billy Budd’s in that his devotion to

the virtuous has caused his human frailty to surface. Glen

Stanly, wise and educated in the ways of using people to

his best advantage,J probably notices this devotion and

encourages Frederic to pursue the matter further. Stanly,

therefore, sets up Frederic to do the work of vengeance

that he is incapable of doing.

The matter of the letter they j ointly sent causes one

to ask who wrote the letter? It is filled with the venom

of Stanly, but the tone is that of an angered moralist such

as Frederic.

When Frederic and Glen meet Pierre on the street it is

Glen who takes the initial action. He leaps toward Pierre

with "lightning-like ferocity" and strikes him in the face

with a cowhide whip. However, Frederic’s actions need also

to be noticed. Because Glen leaps first, Frederic restrains

himself for he "would not make two, in the direct personal

assault upon one" (p. 359). He instead shouts out his char­

ges at Pierre: "Liar! Villain!"

When Tartan returns to Pierre’s room to seek Lucy she

is gone and he goes to the prison where the murderer is being kiept. His interest is still with his sister’s well being and

it is significant that we last seem him as Laertes over 244

Ophelia "on the floor holding his sister in his arms"(p. 362).

Delly Ulver and Mrs. Tartan are representative of opposite social forces. Delly is the social outcast, the excluded humanity that is symbolic of society’s hypocritical claim to equality and belief in Christian forgiveness. Mrs.

Tartan, on the other hand, is the social manipulator and status seeker. She is the intruder who takes mental note of all that is going on and plans her strategies so carefully that eventually she becomes a part of that hypocritical, dominant society. Social position gained, Mrs. Juxtaposition disclaims any credit for its occurence and blames it on the stars: "they came together before Mrs. Tartan’s eyes; and what more could Mrs. Tartan do toward making them forever one and indivisible" (p. 27)? Mrs. Tartan’s motives are always quite clear, however, as she maneuvers whatever is necessary so she can gain in social prestige.

Mrs. Tartan, instead of being daughter-proud, for which she had infinite reason, was a little inclined to being purse-proud, for which she had not the slightest reason (p. 26).

"Mrs. Tartan is satirized as a brainless woman who has no real human heart and who cannot see realities at all. She never understands the real strength of which her daughter is 226 capable." When Glen and Frederic suggest that Mrs. Tar-

226 Stern, p. 152. 245

tan go to seek Lucy and appeal to her best reason, Melville tells us:

Had Mrs. Tartan been a different woman than she was, had she indeed any disinterested agonies of a gener­ ous heart, and not mere match-making mortifications, however poignant, then the hope of Frederic and Glen might have had more likelihood in it. Never­ theless, the experiment was tried, but signally failed (p. 326).

Unwilling to sacrifice her social position for Lucy, she turns from her in the same way that her long admired model,

Mrs. Glendinning, had turned from Pierre. Her pride is over­ whelming and her social status now dictates her decision:

"Girl! here where I stand, I forever cast thee off. Never more shalt thou be vexed by my maternal entreaties. I shall instruct thy brothers to disown thee; I shall instruct Glen Stanly to banish thy worthless image from his heart, if ban­ ished thence it be not already by thine own incred­ ible folly and depravity. For thee, Mr. Monster! the judgment of God will overtake thee for this. And for thee, madam, I have no words for the woman who will connivingly permit her own husband’s para­ mour to dwell beneath her roof. For thee, frail one" (to Delly), "thou needest no amplification.--A nest of vileness! And now, surely, whom God Himself hath abandoned forever, a mother may quit, never more to revisit" (p. 329).

The true significance of Mrs. Tartan’s character comes through in those lines, above. She has come to equate her warped social attitudes with those of God. Her Christian society has come to believe that God is so human that his benevolence is limited and that forgiveness can be pre­ 246

scribed only to pardon certain sins.

Delly’s is the first expulsion in the book. She becomes symbolic of the effect of man’s inhumanity to man. As

Isabel, Pierre, and Lucy are added to the list of social outcasts, they become associated with the woe of Delly.

Ironically, Delly, the symbol of life and life-giving, is taken along by Pierre who eventually denies humanity and life in general. Delly acts as a perpetual beacon which flashes simultaneously good and evil messages. She is the truest human symbol in the book.

If one reads carefully all that is said about her, and is familiar with the way in which Melville hides in a name the key to his meaning, it becomes evident that she is the primitive, quite innocent, but sensual, and unconscious counterpart of Isabel; she is that essentially primitive female and inno- cently-sensual and suffering element in sex.

Milton Stern recognizes that Melville manipulates his setting to substantiate Delly’s humanness:

When the three move to the Apostles, it is Delly who is closest to the warmth of life and everyday, common humanity. Her room is in the kitchen, where the warmth-bearing stovepipe originates. Isabel comes between Pierre and humanity. . . . The stove­ pipe continues through Isabel’s room, and just enters Pierre’s quarters before it turns out through the wall.228

227 Watson, p. 208.

228 stern, p. 188. 247

Delly becomes a symbol of what Pierre, Isable, and Lucy can never really forsake. As the representative of the human condition, she serves their every need and wish and is a constant reminder of the lie of their isolation. "Delly is the humanity that they forsake and yet bring with them as an inescapable burden of their history and their very act of renunciation."229

The fact that Melville is a conscious artist of the symbols he uses, leads to one last observation. It is in the characters who are the most menial that humanity is most evident. It is in the most undemocratic minds and persona­ lities that something less than a true picture of man is seen. Delly is the most obvious, but characters like Ned,

Christopher (the stablemaster), Dates, the cab driver in

New York, and even the beautiful but painted prostitute, all demonstrate the human condition with which the Christian community must deal. It is in the faith of forgiveness and a true recognition of equality that human happiness is possible. It is the acceptance of the infiniteness and the fact that man is destined to rejoin his divine maker that a man becomes a Christian. It is not in the rebellion

229 Stern, p. 188. 248

against the imperfect systems of man and his world that man shows his greatest strength; but it is in his wisdom and fortitude to strive for God's ideal within his own limited capacities. Man is assured by constant failure that faith in his Maker is his only Hope of happiness and life. It is not in the Pierre-like rejection of the human condition that man gains strength. It is not in the Glen­ dinning pretension that the world is all there is that man’s power and control grow. It is in the humble acceptance of man’s most imperfect nature wherein he gains his divinity.

It is in the Delly-like phrase, "Pity! pity!--mercy, my

God ... I /am/ penitentially seeking to be pure" (p. 321), that man will finally gain the divine kingdom. 2 41

SUMMARY

The predominence of the notion that Pierre; Or The

Ambiguities is a major Melvillean statement of anti-Chris­ tianity, anti-idealism, and a recommendation of expedient philosophy is highly misleading. It is more likely that this work represents a much more complex and sophisticated metaphysics than any of Melville's books with the exception of The Confidence-Man. This suggests that the probability for understanding the book rests in its deep moral themes and confrontations rather than on its surface plots and the literal dialogue of the characters. The structure as well as the irony, parody of sentimentalism, and ambiguities are all developed around and by the moral questions.

It has been recognized by every major critic of Melville that the author was morally torn and that he wrestled with his personal convictions to a point of utter frustration.

However, it is evident from the preceeding discussion that whatever frustration exists in Pierre exists due to the lack of faith and moral strength on the part of its society and characters. Melville's is a frustration at the sight of a l corroding society that ironically quotes Christ’s words but lives by Satan's promises. The position that Melville takes in this Work is one of commitment to the recognition of man's 250

weakness, but at the same time, his utter dependence upon

the Divine power that can rescue him from himself.

The history of the criticism directed to Pierre; Or The

Ambiguities reflects an almost constant effort to identify

Melville with Pierre. There are undoubted parallels, yet

parallels do not attest to anything but the fact that Mel­

ville is using the materials he knows best for his external

plot. We are not free to assume that Pierre's moral position

is Melville's and we are, likewise, not permitted to read

Melville into the story in order to explain what, otherwise,

seems unexplainable. The book has suffered the fate of so many others in that it has been rashly judged by a contem­

porary society ill-equipped or deprived of the proper aes­

thetic distance to decide its importance. It has, also, been subjected to many of the vogues and fashionable critical approaches of the twentieth century that have tended to for­ get the story and treat it as an undeclared autobiography.

Seen in itself, Pierre presents one of the soundest pieces of nineteenth-century social criticism that exists.

It involves itself with the hypocracy of the New England morality and aristocracy as seen through the eyes of the new, urban democrat of America. It denounces the growing liberalism in the social conduct as well as the incessant 251

reformation movements in the churches. It charges transcen­

dentalism with ineffectiveness and egoism; and, industrialism with the impoverishment and dehumanization of man and his

soul. It cuts deep into the core of family life and shows

that the insecure roots of social morality reflect merely

the absence of well-grounded family ties that encourage freedom of expression and Truth.

In all, Melville gives us a book that ironically claims the need for the forgotten principles of Christianity in a

Christian society. The rotting, ineffective institutions have become so because they have sacrificed the sacred prin­ ciples of Christ to materialism and expediency and they now lie in the mire of their own disgusting stench. There is hope, however, in Pierre. It is the hope that comes in the suggestion that the Glendinnings have died out and that a new breed of man can successfully love his fellow men and conduct himself in the ways of Christ. There is the hope that exists in democracy which emphasizes man's humility and meanness and his dependence upon those among him. And, there is the hope that lies in the unchosen alternative of Chris­ tianity to which a newly enlightened society can lead, not mislead, their Pierres. 257-

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