What Does The Lightning Rod Man Represent

Literary Analysis Paper

The Lightning Rod Man, written by Herman Melville, symbolizes the way that he views false religions. Throughout the story, he uses the way that the salesman and his tactics to sell his product to symbolize how he views false religions.
This story uses the salesman to show how the author feels about false religions. Throughout, Melville uses the symbolism and references in the story to clearly state how he feels about false religion. In the story, the salesman tries to sell the lightning rod by claiming how great it is and telling the man: “Are you so horridly ignorant, then…as not to know that by far the most dangerous part of house, during such a terrific tempest as this, is the fire-place?” Basically, he insults the man. The salesman appears like the Thunder God, and the lightning rod represents false religious symbols. In addition to this, Melville uses the salesman’s tactics to sell the product to how false religions persuade you.
The author uses the way that the salesman tries to sell the man the lighting rod to show how false religions persuade you to join their religion. In the story, the lightning rod salesman tries to scare the man into buying it with threats of his house burning down and up selling how good his product is. When
The homeowner, however, at first calls the character Jupiter. The lightning-rod man proceeds to scold the homeowner for standing near the hearth, near the walls, for touching metal during a storm and for blasphemously calling him a pagan god. Then, Melville later uses very choice words to describe both the salesman and his approach of selling his product such as: "He pointed his tri-forked thing at my heart," describing the salesman and the lightning rod after being threatened by the salesman. This imagery is like that of the devil, and relates to the falseness that the main character was being tricked