The Power of Footnotes: Confidence Man Part 1

I have never appreciated footnotes more than when I am reading The Confidence Man. Initially striking about Melville’s work is his intricate layering of social issues, Biblical allusions, allegorical characters, and rather dense language. I am already intrigued by this “confidence man,” who seems to be a deceiver to the very core. So far, I have encountered the confidence man in five different disguises, from dumb prophet to a lame beggar to an unfortunate man with a weed to a cold man in a gray suit to a jovial man with ruby tassels. Each disguise seems tailor made for the unsuspecting passenger who encounters that particular mask.

I am enjoying the wealth of literary devices Melville uses in subtle ways. I love Melville’s irony in often having one disguise of the confidence man ask about himself to an unknowing passenger. The word “confidence” seems to have multiple layers. I lost count of the amount of times the word was included in the first chapters of the book. Over and over again, the confidence man asks, “Can you have confidence in me?” The answer to the question is invariably no, and yet after stuttering and flutters of conscience, most of the unsuspecting victims not only put confidence in this masquerading man but contribute to his financial well being. He preys upon each individual’s weakness. He riles up the collegiate with philosophical talk about gloomy people, winning his favor and his dollars. He enlists the sympathy of the good-hearted woman by playing upon her loyalties to a false fund, the Widow and Orphan Asylum. And all the while he records these transactions in a mysterious, suspicious black book.

Already at least one level of the title’s meaning seems clear. This man, who seems to be the devil in various disguises, always brings up the issue of confidence in mankind followed by philanthropic action. Confidence in this sense seems to be a general trust in the heart of man, a propensity to assume the best about a perfect stranger rather than resorting to suspicion. Of course, the irony in such a name is that the confidence man is completely unworthy of the trust he idolizes in conversation to others; he merits every ounce of suspicion. The second half of the title, “His Masquerade” seems fitting aboard this Fidele vessel. He parades about the ship deck, switching faces and games but always with the same deceitful motive and twisted ambition.

The conversation between the confidence man and the gentleman with gold sleeve buttons was particularly interesting. The confidence man tells the gentleman of his grand plan to collect worldwide taxes to forever wipe out need in one swoop, saying, “You see, this doing good to the world by driblets amounts to just nothing. I am for doing good to the world with a will. I am for doing good to the world once for all and having done with it…I am for sending ten thousand missionaries in a body and converting the Chinese en masse within six months of the debarkation.” I think Melville perfectly captures the serpent-like kind of persuasion characteristic of the devil in this scene. Everything about the plan sounds noble, efficient, and active. The most effective kind of deception is barely twisted truth rather than blatant lies. What the confidence man says sounds good, albeit impossible. Yet underneath such an idea, he lacks any compassion. This “humanitarian aid” sounds cold, calculated, and business like—unmotivated by any real compassion or desire to ease suffering. The confidence man is promising a quick fix without any real consideration for the people he proposes to aid.

Melville also includes a discussion of the difference between good and righteous. He introduces a character he calls a good man and then challenges the reader to judge whether righteousness or goodness is better. Of the good man, Melville says, “a merely good man, that is, one good merely by his nature, is so far from thereby being righteous, that nothing short of a total change and conversion can make him so; which is something which no honest mind, well read in the history of righteousness, will care to deny.” This seems to be at the crux of Melville’s allegory. Can a man be “good” in nature? Can, as the confidence man continually slithers and persuades, we put confidence in one another? Or does good only come out of what Melville (seemingly ironically or mockingly) calls a total change and conversion? I'm excited to find out more!