# The Narrator (The Piazza) — Short Fiction character guide

> The Narrator (The Piazza) in Short Fiction by Herman Melville.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Unknown, the man, this man

**First appearance:** 0028-the-piazza

## Snapshot

A new country resident who builds a piazza to properly savor Greylock's panorama, then becomes obsessed with a cottage glimmering on the distant mountain.

## Who they are

He is a leisured, self-amused man who measures his house against the mountains and finds it wanting, so he adds a piazza the better to worship the view. His contentment curdles into curiosity when a far-off cottage, lit by sun or fire, suggests a life more charmed than his own. That itch to trade his green lounge for another man's prospect drives the tale from pleasant reverie toward uneasy pilgrimage.

## In the story

### [The Piazza](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_28_se/chapters/the-piazza)

The narrator who builds a piazza and journeys to the mountain house, seeking the source of a distant gleam.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_28_se/characters/the_narrator_piazza
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_28_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_28_se/characters