# 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 restless country gentleman who builds a piazza to properly savor his mountain view, then turns his idle gaze on a distant cottage.

## Who they are

He is a leisured man of narrow fortune and wide aesthetic appetite, who quarries a piazza onto his old house so he can recline before Greylock as before a painting. His craving for tranquil, unhurried beauty is genuine, but it also exposes a temperament that cannot leave a prospect alone. When his eye drifts to a cottage on the far hillside, his contentment curdles into curiosity, setting the story's quiet pursuit in motion.

## 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_builder
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_28_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_28_se/characters