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Melville's Indian-Hater: A Note on a Meaning of The Confidence-Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Roy Harvey Pearce
Roy Harvey Pearce*
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University, Columbus 10
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Extract

Recently, in his “Sources and Symbols for Melville's Confidence-Man” (PMLA, lxvi [1951], 363-380), John W. Shroeder has given us what I judge to be one of our most valuable exegeses of this difficult novel. Yet I think his exegesis must be modified somewhat—modified by working as he works, from source to symbol. In this note, meant to be complementary to Mr. Shroeder's essay, I should like to consider further one of Melville's symbols in relation to the source from which it takes its initial meaning. My concern is to try to understand Melville's Indian-hater and the “metaphysics” of his hatred in relation to the tradition from which they are derived.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 67 , Issue 7 , December 1952 , pp. 942 - 948
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1952

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References

1 I must remark, however, that I think that Mr. Shroeder, like most other critics of The Confidence-Man, finds so much that is rich in Melville's “sources and symbols” that he glosses over that failure in formal structure in which their brilliant proliferation results.

2 This, in general, is also the interpretation of Nathalia Wright, Melville's Use of the Bible (Durham, 1949), pp. 55-57, and of Richard Chase, Herman Melville (New York, 1949), pp. 198-199.

3 The novels are James McHenry, The Spectre of the Forest (1823); N. W. Hentz, Tadeuskund (1825); James Kirke Paulding, The Dutchman's Fireside (1831); Robert Montgomery Bird, Nick of the Woods (1837); Anna L. Snelling, Kaboasa (1842); Samuel Young, Tom Hanson, the Avenger (1847); James W. Dallam, The Deaf Spy (1848); Emerson Bennett, The Prairie Flower (1840), The Renegade (1848), Kate Clarendon (1848); and James Quinlan, Tom Quick, the Indian Slayer (1851). The most interesting of the sketches are those of James Hall, which include—besides the sketch from Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the West (1834-35) which is Melville's immediate source for the Moredock story—“The Backwoodsman,” collected in Legends of the West (1833), “The Pioneer,” collected in Tales of the Border (1835), and “The Indian-Hater,” collected in The Wilderness and the War Path (1846).

4 James Quinlan, The Original Life and Adventures of Tom Quick, the Indian Slayer [1st ptd. 1851 as Tom Quick, the Indian Slayer] (Deposit, N. Y., 1894), p. 101.

5 Page references are to the text of the Constable Edition (London, 1923).

6 Page references are to the text of the first complete edition (Philadelphia, 1835).