Most twentieth-century critics read Melville's Pierre as a parody of the sentimental novel. They point to its overblown prose and hyperbolic rendering of domestic manners to argue that Pierre is a barbed critique of bourgeois politesse. A variation of this reading stresses Melville's strategic sentimentalism, positing that Pierre's romantic-familial plot was meant to engage superficial readers, while the book's deeper elements were aimed at his true audience. Both readings emphasize Melville's aloofness and authorial control, imagining the writer by tuns mocking and hoodwinking a feckless readership. Such a strategy, however, implies a cool detachment of the artist from his creation, when in fact Melville is never more personally involved or more in earnest than he is in Pierre.