In this excerpt from herman melville’s short story "the lightning-rod man," which parts best support the view that the narrator equates the salesman with the devil?

who has empowered you, you tetzel, to peddle round your indulgences from divine ordinations? the hairs of our heads are numbered, and the days of our lives. in thunder as in sunshine, i stand at ease in the hands of my god. false negotiator, away! see, the scroll of the storm is rolled back; the house is unharmed; and in the blue heavens i read in the rainbow, that the deity will not, of purpose, make war on man's earth.""impious wretch! " foamed the stranger, blackening in the face as the rainbow beamed, "i will publish your infidel notions."
the scowl grew blacker on his face; the indigo-circles enlarged round his eyes as the storm-rings round the midnight moon. he sprang upon me; his tri-forked thing at my heart.i seized it; i snapped it; i dashed it; i trod it; and dragging the dark lightning-king out of my door, flung his elbowed, copper scepter after him.
but spite of my treatment, and spite of my dissuasive talk of him to my neighbors, the lightning-rod man still dwells in the land; still travels in storm-time, and drives a brave trade with the fears of man.

In the given excerpt from Herman Melville’s "The Lightning-Rod Man" we can see a comparison of a salesman with the devil, this similarity is demonstrated in three occasions on the text:

"The scowl grew blacker on his face; the indigo-circles enlarged round his eyes as the storm-rings round the midnight moon. He sprang upon me; his tri-forked thing at my heart", here, the author describes some kind of scary creature with a "tri-forked thing" just like the devil.

"I seized it; I snapped it; I dashed it; I trod it; and dragging the dark lightning-king out of my door, flung his elbowed, copper scepter after him" in this phrase the author calls the salesman "the dark lightning-king"

"But spite of my treatment, and spite of my dissuasive talk of him to my neighbors, the Lightning-rod man still dwells in the land; still travels in storm-time, and drives a brave trade with the fears of man" here the author refers to the salesman as "the Lightning-rod man" also comparing him with the devil.

Excerpts one and three are the correct answers.

Explanation:

Herman Melville was an American author known by Bartleby the scrivener, among others. The Lightning-Rod Man is a short story known by its experimental betting. There, Melville takes a true story to develop a comic tale where a man is selling lightning rods, which are the only way to protect oneself from lightnings.

The first excerpt from the story is correct because we can see the speaker create a dichotomy, where he first mentions how our days are counted and then refers to God. Immediately, the speaker compares the "false negotiator" with bad things and sees him as a potential damage to his house.

In the third option, we can see how the object turns into something that could be considered evil according to the description and how the person's adjectives create and effect in the whole ambience (the nature, in this case) and finishes with the "tri-forked thing" at speakers heart. This should be understood as a metaphor (even if the objects are real) related to how the devil is pictured by most people.

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