8 Herman Melville (1819–1891) (original) (raw)

Handbook of the American Short Story, 2022

Abstract

Known primarily for his novels, Herman Melville also brought to bear hissocial criticism, wide intellectual and historical compass, and a sardonic sense ofhumor on the short-fiction genre. The two stories discussed here ponder Americantechno-modernity and an emerging globalized market economy informed by genderand class divisions. The two-parted story“The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tarta-rus of Maids”contrasts two scenes of leisure and labor and portrays the compart-mentalizing thinking behind transnational capitalism and how it differentiatespeople by gender, class, and region.“The Lightning-Rod Man”satirizes nineteenth-century American valorizations of science (scientism) and traces the roots of that fer-vor to the religious revival movements of the day. On the surface, the story allegorizesthe emerging rift between science and religion, mass culture, and democratic individ-ualism. Yet Melville shows how, underneath a veneer of cultural competition, religionand technology share discursive and institutional histories.

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