American Comédie

After several years as a writer of short fiction, during a time when Balzac was receiving increasing reader attention and realism was beginning to change its responses in America to the changes of Balzac’s inheritors in France, Melville wrote The Confidence-Man, a much shorter version of La Comédie humaine where Balzac attempted to be the historian of French morals as secretary. This Melville wanted to do for the United States, and he uses many of the same techniques as Balzac, such as recognizable traits from celebrities, biting satire, and humor worthy of Molière. He as well has his own “Avant-propos” in three intrusive authorial chapters where he discusses the theoretic nature of realistic characters in fiction. Both in language and example the commentary echoes Balzac. Moreover, Melville clearly borrowed the character and situation from Balzac’s Jésus-Christ en Flandre, another story known by Hawthorne, to suggest his “man in cream colors.” Both stories explore the loss of Christian faith in Providence.