In Herman Melville’s last novel, "The Confidence Man", space is completely absent: the action is set on a steamboat sailing down the Mississippi on Fools’ Day from Saint Louis to New Orleans, but ends without an explanation nearby Cairo. The scenario is never described, and this detail is more striking because space has always played a peculiar role in Melville’s work.
Scholars have agreed upon the idea that Melville was trying to create a structure and a language that reflected his disillusionment towards the United States’ society, and, perhaps, the disappearance of the landscape from the narration is just another telling sign of the author’s set of mind.
"The Confidence-Man" is Melville’s attempt to explore space and its meaning – that of the archetypical, symbolic core of the nation, rather than merely the geographical one. The archetypical significance of the ship and the river is what is explored in this analysis of "The Confidence-Man".
Melville deconstructs space as he deconstructs the Con-Man: both are the sign of an American identity that is definitely lost, the signs of a broken confidence in American future.
