Melville and Balzac: The Man in Cream-Colors

This article offers a definite example of Herman Melville's still widely unacknowledged dependence on French author Honoré de Balzac for devising his narrative structures, ontology, and scheme of characterization. After demonstrating that Melville had ample opportunity to have experienced significant awareness and analysis of Balzac's massive La Comédie humaine by 1857, the author compares specific narrative and linguistic elements between Balzac's "Christ in Flanders" and Melville's The Confidence-Man to demonstrate the extent of this reliance. In the process, the essay offers an explanation for several unanswered questions about the novel, particularly the meaning of the inserted critical chapters on original characters, the ontological nature of the satiric tale, and the ferryboat resetting of what has assumed to have been inspired by an urban incident. The article concludes that it was Balzac's influence and achievement that drove Melville throughout his career to attempt to create a sociological corpus of American literature.