0 a person who deceives people:
a confidence trickster
In actuality, he has little in common with the traditional suitors of romantic comedy, being associated rather with the trickster figures of earlier popular performance.
This more emotionally charged setting creates a more intense characterisation of the blues that is musically analogous to the aggressive trickster figure.
Thus, it is superiority in wit that allows the trickster to gain the upper hand.
Like the double entendres of the signifying trickster character, the music of the blues encompasses several contradictory elements.
In the blues tradition, this trickster figure is often represented as the devil.
The trickster represents everything one would like to do but cannot.
In so doing, the narrators mark themselves as signifying tricksters whose actions fall outside of the boundaries established by societal norms.
It is this assumption of the trickster persona and its liminal position that allows the blues musician to signify.
