Herman Melville's "The Lightning-Rod Man"

As mentioned before, Romanticism was changing the way literature was written.  Herman Melville's "The Lightning-Rod Man", takes on few characteristics of Romanticism writing, but still stays true to it.  A short story of a man, who is also the narrator, living in the mountains admiring a thunder storm, he is surprised by a man knocking on his door.  The man is drenched by the rain and the narrator invites him inside so that he may dry off, although he does not know the stranger.  While inside, the narrator assumes that the stranger is Jupiter Tonans, the Ancient Roman God of thunder, or Thunderer.  The narrator is very hospitable to the wet stranger and tries to get him to come and stand by the fire so that he may dry off.  At this point, the stranger starts to urge the narrator to come stand where he is instead of by the fire.  "Sir, said he, excuse me; but instead of my accepting your invitation to be seated on the hearth there, I solemnly warn you, that you had best accept mine, and stand with me in the middle of the room.  Good Heavens! he cried, starting -- there is another of those awful crashed.  I warn you, sir, quit the hearth."  The stranger is very persistent at trying to get the narrator to stand near him.  He urges the narrator to come stand in the middle of the cottage with him telling him that standing near the fireplace is one of the worst places to stand because there is soot and heated air which the stranger claims are great conductors of lightning.  The two men go back and forth with each other trying to get the other to stand where they are.  Finally the narrator asks the stranger what his business is and the stranger tells him that he sales lightning rods.  The narrator ends up being furious with the man because he has stood there ridiculing the narrator and as it turned out, all he wanted to do was sale lightning rods.

This story would show the following characteristics of Romanticism: Individualism-both characters are unique, Informality-the language is simple and easy to understand, Emotional-both men are very emotionally involved in where they want to stand, and Imagination-you can actually see the little cottage that is in the mountains during the storm along with the two men as you read.

Melville, Herman. The Lightning-Rod Man. 06 Dec 2010 <http://www.melville.org/Irman.htm>.