The Confidence Artist
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The Confidence Artist
The first record of American con artistry dates back to an article on William Thompson in the NY Herald in 1849. The ancient Greek myth about Hermes also sheds a light on how confidence artists came to be. Some traits of the confidence artist are ingenuity, nonchalance, originality, and audacity. The confidence artist uses these traits to charm and scam their marks. Learning more about how these affect the confidence artist, will help us understand what’s at the core of their actions.
William Thompson would go up to random people in the street acting as if he was an old acquaintance and ask them to let him borrow their watch for the day. For some reason, the strangers would agree to this and give him their watch, only to find out that he wasn’t going to return it to them. Thompson used his charisma to convince the complete stranger to trust him with their most valued possession. His audacity is what ended up getting him caught because he wanted it to be a spectacle and create attention. William Thompson was by far not the first ever confidence artist in America or even the world, he was only the first one to get caught and written about (NY Herald 1849).
Hermes, the son of Zeus, is considered to be one of the first con artists in the myth about Apollo and the former. Hermes, is the messenger demigod who communicates between the gods and the humans on earth (Fletcher). Therefore, he is very good with language and persuading people and gods to believe anything he says. Playing his lyre as a pastime until he grew tired of this pleasant occupation, Hermes decided to play a prank on Apollo and move his white oxen away from where they normally roamed. This angered Apollo, knowing that Hermes was the one to play this prank. He traveled to the cave where Hermes lay (Fletcher). Hermes didn’t say a word when Apollo asked about where his oxen went, so he had to go to Zeus to get to the bottom of it. Finally, Hermes told the truth about what occurred and apologized by giving Apollo a lyre that he just created (Fletcher). Hermes believed that facts don’t persuade people, music and lies activate emotion and reason. He used his originality in concocting this elaborate plan to steal the oxen, and almost got away with it.
Edgar Allan Poe wrote about two different Jeremy’s in the farce “Raising the Wind.” The first was Jeremy Bentham, a British philosopher who was one of the first to explain how truth is the best thing on earth. The other was Jeremy Diddler, the fictional character from a 19th century English farce. The latter was known as the first Diddler, a verb used in describing the action of conning. It is also called a compound when talking about multiple fluid people with different personalities. Diddler changed its meaning over time and instead of the older definition, it now means a pervert.
Poe writes about how a Diddler has many different traits including perseverance, minuteness, ingenuity, nonchalance, and his grin. He is not discouraged when faced with an unexpected twist in his plan (Poe). He strategizes his scheme on a small scale so he is aware of every possible outcome. His ingenuity makes him able to understand his plot and invents different results (Poe). The confidence man is also very nonchalant and is coolheaded in times of crisis, making it easier for him to get away with the con. Lastly, a con man always has a mischievous, not innocent grin, that he keeps to himself until he is alone in his bed at night (Poe). He grins because he got away with something at someone else’s expense and revels in it. Poe writes about how confidence artists dislike children and stay away from them whenever trying to con someone (Poe). Children don’t know how to hide their true feelings and can tell when you’re lying and will call you out on it. Poe writes about how just like his essay, diddling has no end because art has no end, there is always more originality when it comes to diddling.
The serpent in the Garden of Eden is an exceptional metaphor for con artists. The serpent convinced Eve and through her, Adam, that they could gain knowledge, immortality, prestige, and equality with God by eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The serpent knew very well that they could only lose, and that only he would make a profit. The serpent decided that the only way he could get away with it was to go to Eve first since she was more easily tricked. Eve then convinced Adam that he had to eat the fruit from the tree that God told them not to (New International Version, Genesis 3, 1-6). As a punishment, they unleashed all the evil in the world. Some people also believe that Pandora’s box gave people lying as one of the fundamental traits. When someone opens Pandora’s box by performing a small action, they unleash all that is evil and numerous detrimental negative consequences. The same occurs when confidence artists execute their cons and their marks realize the results of what happened to them.
In the short story, “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, one of the main characters, Hulga, believed that the Bible sales man was just an innocent young man (O’Connor 6). What she didn’t realize was that this good country looking man was going to con her and take her wooden leg (O’Connor 18). Manley Pointer, the Bible