The Confidence Artist

...

salesman, first came across as a harmless boy who just wanted to become a missionary and help people. He gets Hulga’s attention and convinces her to meet him and go to the barn in her field. They finally reach the barn, climb into the loft and Pointer begins to take control while kissing Hulga (O’Connor 15). Her glasses interfere with their kissing, so he removes them and puts them in his pocket, the first indication that he wanted to make sure he had power over her (O’Connor 15). Pointer, after kissing her for quite some time, stops and insists that she tell him that she loves him. Finally, Hulga utters, “Yes, yes,” and he demands that she prove it. This made Hulga think that she finally seduced him without even trying and made her think she was the one in control. To Hulga’s surprise, Pointer wanted her to prove her love by taking off her wooden leg (O’Connor 16). She was at first very hesitant because no one ever saw, let alone touched it. Pointer knew that the only way to have full control over Hulga, was to get her to trust him enough with her wooden leg. She finally complies and takes her leg off and then puts it right back on. Pointer, now knowing how to take it off, slowly takes her leg off and moves it to a corner behind him that Hulga could not reach (O’Connor 17). Making her as venerable as she’s ever been, Pointer starts packing up his Bible, that had whiskey hidden inside and starts moving down the ladder. His outward appearance as this young, innocent, Christian, Bible salesman just got ripped off when he showed Hulga who he really was and what he really wanted. Pointer is the perfect example of how the confidence man changes his personality to be anything that will make people trust him. When he is leaving Hulga up on the loft, he tells her that she wasn’t his first and that he has taken a woman’s glass eye before (O’Connor 18). He also tells her that she will not find him, because he will have a new name and new identity by the time she gets out of the barn. Manley Pointer was a true con artist and revels in his successful schemes.

William Thompson, Hermes, Jeremy Diddler, the serpent, and Manley Pointer are all prime examples of what confidence artists look like. From being the first to be recorded in an American newspaper, to being in The Bible, confidence artists have been around for longer than people have realized. The charm and charisma that the confidence artists have are just a few characteristics that allow their marks to trust them.

Works Cited

"Arrest of the Confidence Man." The Lost Museum Archive. New-York Herald, 8 July 1849.

Web.22 Sept. 2016.

Fletcher, Judith. "A Trickster’s Oaths In The Homeric Hymn To Hermes." American Journal Of

Philology 129.1 (2008): 19-46. Academic Search Premier. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

Genesis. Bible Gateway. Biblica, Inc, n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

O’Connor, Flannery. "Good Country People." Academic Medicine 91.3 (2016): 1-19. Web. 24

Sept. 2016.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "Raising the Wind [Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences]."

Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. N.p., 14 Oct. 1843. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.