The Implied Author in Melville's Pierre

THE IMPLIED AUTHOR IN MELVILLE'S PIERRE Karl F. Knight* Some of the ambiguities in Herman Melville's Pierre can be illuminated (not resolved, but understood as technically achieved ambiguities ) through considering the proposition that he creates uncertainties , confusions, obscurations, and contradictions by his use of an implied author. Melville's early books are technically relatively simple in their use of point of view. In Typee and Omoo he takes the obvious first-person major-character point of view for developing fictionalized autobiography. Although Mardi is a departure in terms of material, it is similar in point of view; Redburn and White-Jacket follow the firstperson autobiographical pattern. It is possible that in writing MobyDick Melville found that his standard point of view was not adequate for this material. Technically speaking, Melville did not make up his mind whose story it was to be. What starts out as Ishmael's story at many points becomes Ahab's story, with numerous presentations of Ahab's thoughts. This is not to say, of course, that Melville had to chose between Ishmael and Ahab but that in using Ishmael as the point-ofview character he had made a technical commitment. The elected point of view could not strictly accommodate the story as it unfolded, leaving a flawed masterpiece. It is likely that the difficulties in writing Moby-Dick led Melville to a more conscious appreciation of point of view and that Pierre represents his efforts to take advantage of what he had learned. The remarkable accomplishments which come immediately after Pierre reflect this heightened technical awareness. In "Bartleby" and "Benito Cereño" Melville fused his point of view and his materials. "Bartleby" is amazingly consistent in using the lawyer as a first-person narrator in order to dramatize the enigma of the scrivener. "Benito Cereño" represents a further step, an accomplishment which should have excited the admiration of Henry James. Whereas "Bartleby" is in the first person, "Cereño" (up to the time when the Americans go to overpower the Spanish ship) is in the third person from Delano's point of view. Again the point of view is the determinant of the nature of the story; it takes its shape and meaning 'Karl F. Knight is a Professor of English at Old Dominion University. He has published The Poetry ofJohn Crowe Ransom (1964), Writer to Writer: Discussions of the Craft of Writing (1966), and articles in The Arlington Quarterly and the Mississippi Quarterly. He is currently working on a book on William Faulkner. 164Karl F. Knight through what the American captain sees and mis-sees, understands and misunderstands. Melville had become skillful and presumably aware in the choosing and handling of point of view. Pierre is Melville's first novelistic departure from the first-person, major-character narrative. The bafflingly complex manner in which the narrator is used suggests that he is a created figure distinct from Herman Melville and, further, that he is used precisely for the purpose of compounding the ambiguities of the book, a technical triumph of an effective vehicle for realizing the intention announced in the subtitle. In Pierre, as in the earlier works, Melville sets up a hero who is moved through a series of experiences which reveal or suggest the nature of existence. The interesting complexity in Pierre, however, is that both the hero and the implied author are taken through their initiation . Viewed in this way, Pierre is in part the story of an implied author who tries to examine the moral universe by tracing the career of a naive youth who moves from exuberant idealism to despairing selfknowledge . The implied author begins blithely but ends in something akin to the despair of his hero. It is as if the project has backfired on the narrator; his apparent intention to achieve awareness by comtemplating what would happen in the given situation brings him more awareness than he had bargained for and of a different kind. Criticism has not gone far in recognizing the complexity of point of view in Pierre. Many commentators take it that the narrative voice is simply that of Herman Melville, who is often supposed to be sympathetic with his hero...