The Confidence-Man: His Guises

PMLA ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Moby Dick ◽  
Confidence Man ◽  
The City

Critics have found Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man more difficult to classify than any other of his books. Melville himself refers to the narrative as “our comedy,” and at one point signals his reader that he is passing “from the comedy of thought to that of action.” He creates an unusual thematic setting by reducing the dimensions of his characters and by curtailing the scale of their actions. The shallowness of the confidence man, unfitting him for the profound pathos or even tragedy of Moby Dick or Pierre, prepares him eminently for the role of the comic racketeer, the city slicker, horn-swoggling and bamboozling the country (and city) yokels. Certainly we do not cry, perhaps we don't even laugh, but surely we smile, if a little grimly, as the confidence man swindles victim after victim in the course of his adventures, relying frequently on the innate weaknesses in human nature—the desire to get something for nothing, the willingness to traffic in the misery of others. But the confidence man exploits generous and noble impulses, too, and this apparent mockery of traditional values gives the book a complexity and at times an ambiguity that cause many readers to abandon it, bewildered.

Sources and Symbols for Melville's Confidence-Man

PMLA ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Shroeder
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Moby Dick ◽  
Confidence Man ◽  
Literary Borrowings ◽  
The City

Melville criticism seems fated to a slow and uncertain growth. We have come a long way, to be sure, beyond the author who dismissed Melville as one among “several minor writers resident in the city or state of New York.” But one chief fault we seem not to have corrected: it is perhaps not over-rash to say that this criticism learns only reluctantly from what it has already accomplished. We know, for instance, that Melville's literary borrowings in such a work as Moby-Dick are worth close scrutiny; we also know that the allegory and the symbol lurk everywhere in Melville's pages. But our knowledge is not regularly put to use as a hypothetical principle for the examination of other works. Now I suggest that there is still a good bit to be done with these tools alone, and in this present paper I mean to try to do a part of it. I propose to identify and follow out certain of the sources and symbols which went into one of Melville's least-known works, The Confidence-Man.

scholarly journals SGRAFFITO «SOVIET TATARIA» AS A URBAN RETROTEXT: IS IT POSSIBLE TO RETHINKING?

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 98-103
Author(s):  
Z.Kh. Sergeeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Street Art ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Urban Discourse ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Thaw Period ◽  
The City

The modern urban space is overflowing with a variety of texts. From a sociological point of view, the opportunity to read and interpret urban texts is becoming very promising. Try to answer the question about the intentions of the authors of the texts, about the languages that the city text uses and what the city text can tell about us, about our time and the environment in which we live. In this article, the author considers sgraffito as one of the forms of manifestation of the urban text. As a specific case for a detailed analysis, a sgraffito with a double name «Soviet Tataria» or «Kazan – the capital of Tataria» was chosen. This choice seems to be interesting and relevant for several reasons. First, this sgraffito was created in 1967, during the «post-thaw» period – the interval between the second thaw of the early 1960-s and the stagnation of the 1970-s. Secondly, in the 1970s-1980-s it played the role of a significant symbol representing the Soviet image of the city of Kazan and the Republic of Tatarstan as a whole. Third, at the beginning of 2000-s, in the era of dismantling and rethinking the Soviet past, a discussion arose about the fate of Soviet monumental painting in a new historical context. Sgraffito «Soviet Tataria» was preserved and restored, but received a new name «Kazan – the capital of Tataria». At present, there is a gradual ousting of the texts of the Soviet era from urban discourse spaces. In Kazan, Soviet urban texts are being replaced by texts focused on traditional values, ethno-national and ethnoreligious content, as well as a variety of texts that are usually defined as street art, graffiti, etc. The state's monopoly on control and authorship in the creation of urban texts has been called into question.

Kropotkin

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Kinna
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Special Character ◽  
Revolutionary Politics

This book is designed to remove Peter Kropotkin from the framework of classical anarchism. By focusing attention on his theory of mutual aid, it argues that the classical framing distorts Kropotkin's political theory by associating it with a narrowly positivistic conception of science, a naively optimistic idea of human nature and a millenarian idea of revolution. Kropotkin's abiding concern with Russian revolutionary politics is the lens for this analysis. The argument is that his engagement with nihilism shaped his conception of science and that his expeditions in Siberia underpinned an approach to social analysis that was rooted in geography. Looking at Kropotkin's relationship with Elisée Reclus and Erico Malatesta and examining his critical appreciation of P-J. Proudhon, Michael Bakunin and Max Stirner, the study shows how he understood anarchist traditions and reveals the special character of his anarchist communism. His idea of the state as a colonising process and his contention that exploitation and oppression operate in global contexts is a key feature of this. Kropotkin's views about the role of theory in revolutionary practice show how he developed this critique of the state and capitalism to advance an idea of political change that combined the building of non-state alternatives through direct action and wilful disobedience. Against critics who argue that Kropotkin betrayed these principles in 1914, the book suggests that this controversial decision was consistent with his anarchism and that it reflected his judgment about the prospects of anarchistic revolution in Russia.

Thomas More's “rule” of pleasure before, after, and inUtopia

Moreana ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (Number 207) (1) ◽  
pp. 36-56
Author(s):  
Gerard Wegemer
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biblical Allusions ◽  
De Officiis

After establishing a context of More's lifelong engagement with the “calculus” of pleasure, this essay shows how the section devoted to the Utopians' pleasure philosophy is structured around five formulations of a “rule” to calculate “true and honest [honesta]” pleasure in ways that playfully imitate and echo the “rule” Cicero formulates several times in De officiis to discern one's duty when there seems to be a conflict between honestas et utilitas. When followed, the Utopian pleasure calculus shows the necessary role of societas, officii, iustitia, caritas, and the other aspects of human nature, most importantly friendship, that Cicero stresses in his rule and that he argued Epicurus ignored. Much of the irony and humor of this section depends on seeing the predominance of Ciceronian vocabulary in Raphael's unusual defense [patrocinium] of pleasure, rather than a Ciceronian defense of duty rooted in honestas. Throughout, however, this essay also shows how More goes beyond Cicero by including Augustinian and biblical allusions to suggest ways that our final end is not as Epicurus or the Stoics or Cicero claim; the language and allusions of this section point to a level of good cheer and care for neighbors and for God in ways quite different from any classical thinker.

PROBLEMS OF STRAY ANIMALS IN NOVOSIBIRSK

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-91
Author(s):  
Elena E. Rinchinova ◽  
Diyara A. Takumova ◽  
Irina I. Bochkareva
Keyword(s):  
Urban Population ◽  
Domestic Animals ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Quantitative Indicators ◽  
The City

The article discusses main issues of organizing activities for the treatment of stray and street animals in the city of Novosibirsk. The important role of successful solving the problem of stray animals in ensuring environmental comfort and safety of the urban population is noted. Definitions of the concepts “stray animals” and “street animals” are given, the differences between them are emphasized. The main regulatory and legal documents governing the handling of stray and street animals are listed. The ways in which domestic animals get into a stray state are described briefly. The results of the collection and analysis of information on the activities of shelters for stray animals in Novosibirsk are described. The information on the quantitative indicators of the shelters are given. Conclusions on how to solve the problem of stray animals, relying on the latest regulations are drawn.

“An Unquestionable Source?”

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-179
Author(s):  
John Cyril Barton
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Travel Narrative ◽  
Old World ◽  
Spanish Inquisition ◽  
Moby Dick ◽  
Confidence Man ◽  
Benito Cereno ◽  
The Town ◽  
Parallel Action

This essay is the first to examine Melville’s “The Town-Ho’s Story” (Chapter 54 of Moby-Dick [1851]) in relation to W. B. Stevenson’s then-popular-but-now-forgotten British travel narrative, Twenty Years’ Residence in South America (1825). Drawing from suggestive circumstances and parallel action unfolding in each, I make a case for the English sailor’s encounter with the Spanish Inquisition in Lima as important source material for the Limanian setting that frames Melville’s tale. In bringing to light a new source for Moby-Dick, I argue that Melville refracts Stevenson’s actual encounter with the Inquisition in Lima to produce a symbolic, mock confrontation with Old-World authority represented in the inquisitorial Dons and the overall context of the story. Thus, the purpose of the essay is twofold: first, to recover an elusive source for understanding the allusive framework of “The Town-Ho’s Story,” a setting that has perplexed some of Melville’s best critics; and second, to illuminate Melville’s use of Lima and the Inquisition as tropes crucial for understanding a larger symbolic confrontation between the modern citizen (or subject) and despotic authority that plays out not only in Moby-Dick but also in other works such as Mardi (1849), White-Jacket (1850), “Benito Cereno” (1855), Clarel (1876), and The Confidence-Man (1857), wherein the last of which the author wrote on the frontispiece of a personal copy, “Dedicated to Victims of Auto da Fe.”

Crossing the Pomerium

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Koortbojian
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Civic Life ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Religion And Law ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

The ancient Romans famously distinguished between civic life in Rome and military matters outside the city—a division marked by the pomerium, an abstract religious and legal boundary that was central to the myth of the city's foundation. This book explores, by means of images and texts, how the Romans used social practices and public monuments to assert their capital's distinction from its growing empire, to delimit the proper realms of religion and law from those of war and conquest, and to establish and disseminate so many fundamental Roman institutions across three centuries of imperial rule. The book probes such topics as the appearance in the city of Romans in armor, whether in representation or in life, the role of religious rites on the battlefield, and the military image of Constantine on the arch built in his name. Throughout, the book reveals how, in these instances and others, the ancient ideology of crossing the pomerium reflects the efforts of Romans not only to live up to the ideals they had inherited, but also to reconceive their past and to validate contemporary practices during a time when Rome enjoyed growing dominance in the Mediterranean world. The book explores a problem faced by generations of Romans—how to leave and return to hallowed city ground in the course of building an empire.

POLIVARIABILITY OF THE BASTARD MOTIF IN THE SHORT STORIES BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT: CHARACTER IN SEARCH OF SELF-IDENTIFICATION

2018 ◽  
pp. 20-27
Author(s):  
Oksana Galchuk
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Guy De Maupassant ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
Role Of It ◽  
Structural Methods

The theme of illegitimacy Guy de Maupassant evolved in his works this article perceives as one of the factors of the author’s concept of a person and the plane of intersection of the most typical motifs of his short stories. The study of the author’s concept of a person through the prism of polivariability of the motif of a bastard is relevant in today’s revision of traditional values, transformation of the usual social institutions and search for identities, etc. The purpose of the study is to give a definition to the existence specifics of the bastard motif in the Maupassant’s short stories by using historical and literary, comparative, structural methods of analysis as dominant. To do this, I analyze the content, variability and the role of this motive in the formation of the Maupassant’s concept of a person, the author’s innovations in its interpretation from the point of view of literary diachrony. Maupassant interprets the bastard motif in the social, psychological and metaphorical-symbolic sense. For the short stories with the presentation of this motif, I suggest the typology based on the role of it in the structure of the work and the ideological and thematic content: the short stories with a motif-fragment, the ones with the bastard’s leitmotif and the group where the bastard motif becomes a central theme. The Maupassant’s interpretation of the bastard motif combines the general tendencies of its existence in the world’s literary tradition and individual reading. The latter is the result of the author’s understanding of the relevant for the era issues: the transformation of the family model, the interest in the theory of heredity, the strengthening of atheistic sentiments, the growth of frustration in the system of traditional social and moral values etc. This study sets the ground for a prospective analysis of the evolution the bastard motif in the short-story collections of different years or a comparative study of the motif in short stories and novels by Maupassant.

Peranan Ketua Pengurus dan Manajer Dalam Penyusunan dan Penerapan Laporan Keuangan Berbasis SAK ETAP Pada Koperasi di Kota Palembang

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Riza Syahputera ◽  
Martha Rianty
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Significant Positive Effect ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
Regression Test ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The City ◽  
Positive Effect

AbstractThis study aims to determine the effect of the role of the Chairperson and Cooperative Manager in the preparation and application of Financial Statements based on SAK ETAP in cooperatives in the city of Palembang. This research is a quantitative study using data obtained from questionnaires and measured using a Likert scale. The sampling technique used is purposive sampling. The sample used in this study was the Chairperson of the cooperative and the manager of the cooperative in the city of Palembang. The cooperatives studied were 203 cooperatives. The data analysis technique used is multiple linear regression test. The results showed that the role of cooperative leaders and managers had a significant positive effect on the preparation and application of SAK ETAP-based financial statements.Keywords : chairman, manager, SAK ETAP, cooperative

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