SOURCE: “Melville's Pierre and the Psychology of Incongruity,” in Studies in the Novel, Vol. XV, No. 3, Fall, 1983, pp. 183-201.

In the following essay, Lewis explores Pierre in terms of the various characters' responses to the incongruous, suggesting that this theme contributes to the overall ambiguity of the work.

That sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke.

Melville, Moby-Dick

All of us are confronted with conflicts or problems that must be dealt with. By occasionally stepping back from the seriousness of the situation and approaching it with a sense of humor (sometimes called “looking on the light side”), we are presumably better able to deal with...