Con Artists in Literature and Popular Culture: How Fiction Informs Real Life

Stories and tales about hucksters, charlatans, and con men have always fascinated us since time immemorial, from epic narratives such as Homer's Odyssey to filmic story adaptations, such as The Talented Mr. Ripley. The common element in all of these is a clear need on the part of some of the most creative individuals of history to penetrate the mind of the conniver to paint a portrait of the master manipulator, upon which we can reflect about the human condition more generally. Psychologists and sociologists have long tried to explain this fascination with con artists of all stripes and from all eras of time. Is it because con artists are so often charming and charismatic, even though they use their magnetism to put an act for self-serving swindles? No one has yet to provide a definitive answer or a psychological profile of the manipulator, so that we can make sense of this dark facet of the human psyche. Perhaps the best way to grasp what con artistry is all about, and what it tells us about human nature, is to construct our own profile by extrapolating it from the portrayals of schemers in fiction. In that realm, we get to see con artists in their many guises, with our own imaginations, and can thus even put a face (or set of faces) to the scoundrel archetype. The purpose of this book is to show how such a profile can be derived via an engagement with the many fictional portrayals of con artistry.

Stories and tales about hucksters, charlatans, and con men have always fascinated us since time immemorial, from epic narratives such as Homer’s Odyssey to filmic story adaptations, such as The Talented Mr. Ripley. The common element in all of these is a clear need on the part of some of the most creative individuals of history to penetrate the mind of the conniver to paint a portrait of the master manipulator, upon which we can reflect about the human condition more generally. Psychologists and sociologists have long tried to explain this fascination with con artists of all stripes and from all eras of time. Is it because con artists are so often charming and charismatic, even though they use their magnetism to put an act for self-serving swindles? No one has yet to provide a definitive answer or a psychological profile of the manipulator, so that we can make sense of this dark facet of the human psyche. Perhaps the best way to grasp what con artistry is all about, and what it tells us about human nature, is to construct our own profile by extrapolating it from the portrayals of schemers in fiction. In that realm, we get to see con artists in their many guises, with our own imaginations, and can thus even put a face (or set of faces) to the scoundrel archetype. The purpose of this book is to show how such a profile can be derived via an engagement with the many fictional portrayals of con artistry.