Although there have been powerful attacks on what Hershel Parker nominates as the “standard line of interpretation” (x) regarding Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man, what could we gain from going against the grain and seeking to extrapolate meaning from a novel that dissuades the reader from finding it? In contrast to critics such as Leon F. … Continue reading Satire, Symbolism, and the “Working Through” of Historical Ghosts in The Confidence-Man