The Confidence Man Flashcards
Unveiling the truth (Moby Dick)
To strike through the mask
Masks and illusions
The entire ship is a riddle
- Pitch, 22
The foolishness of it all
Wild goose chase
- Man with the wooden leg, 3
Theatricality among men
To do, is to act: so all doers are actors.
- Man with the wooden leg, 6
Playing a part in life
Life is a pic-nic en costume; one must take a part, assume a character, stand ready in a sensible way to play the fool.
- Cosmopolitan, 24
Last sentence
Something further may follow of this masquerade.
Truth changes
Hardly anybody believes my story, and so to most I tell a different one.
- Thomas Fry, 19
Confidence in capitalism/American society
Confidence is the indispensable basis of all sorts of human transactions. Without it, commerce between man and man, as between country and country, would, like a watch, run down and stop.
- PIO man, 22
Double meaning and capitalism pervading everything
Are you competent to a good shave, barber?
- Cosmopolitan, 42
Quasi-erotic enjoyment of Black Guinea’s humiliation
His knotted black fleece and good-natured, honest black face rubbing against the upper part of people’s thighs.
- Chapter 3
About race (black v. white)
Dogs without masters fare hard.
- About BG, 3
About race (Native Americans)
A race whose name is upon the frontier a memento mori; painted to him in every evil light.
- Chapter 26
Charity is not charity anymore
“game of charity”, “charity business”
Intertextuality about past writers
Shakespeare has got to be a kind of deity.
- Cosmopolitan, 30
Intertextuality: transcendentalism
There is something wrong about the man who wants help.
- Egbert, 39
