While Robert Penn Warren and Ralph Ellison both wrote and spoke often of their interest in the literary project of Herman Melville and acknowledged their literary debt to him, there has been a dearth of in-depth analysis of these literary relationships. An understanding of how Warren and Ellison each interpreted Melville's literary thought, archetypes, and tropes, as well as their adaptation and continuation of his American vision is especially important given the increasing significance placed on Melville in the mid-twentieth century by intellectuals concerned about the rise of totalitarianism and the state of democracy at home and abroad. This dissertation examines Melville's influence on Warren and Ellison as displayed in their essays and interviews as well as in their literary works, while focusing primarily upon the later two authors' reception of what Warren terms Melville's "Single Great Story" of a wandering son protagonist whom he identifies as an archetypal Ishmael figure. Since both Warren and Ellison populate their fiction with failed fathers and rootless sons, and this theme dominates Melville's fiction as well, this was a natural focal point for developing their literary relationships. The dissertation first examines the various non-fiction discussions of Melville by both Warren and Ellison in order to develop each's own readerly interests and perspective on the earlier author's corpus. In both cases, attention was given to Warren and Ellison's use of archetype, literary history, and myth-making in their interpretations of Melville. These interpretations were then used to close-read various father and son pairings in Warren and Ellison's fiction (and, in Warren's case, poetry) in order to uncover points of influence from Melville. A result of this focus was to develop an implicit archetypal use by Melville, Warren, and Ellison of the biblical story of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael to describe the fraught relationship in America between the present and the past, complicated by overly-restrictive conceptions of what it means to be an American. Additionally, in the Ellison chapters, some time is spent discussing the influence of Warren upon Ellison as well. Examining Melville's influence by understanding Warren and Ellison's personal interpretations of the earlier author resulted in tangible points of relationship between each author, which a more general approach that overlooked how each author read Melville and merely examined similar themes in their fiction and poetry would not have been able to accomplish. Additionally, examining both authors' readings of Melville was instrumental for establishing deep parallels between Warren and Ellison's conception of American identity, history, and democracy. The dissertation connects Warren and Ellison's reading and appropriation of Melville and his "Single Great Story" to their own political and social climates, especially to their concerns over regionalism, the Civil Rights Movement, and the tendency on the part of mainstream society to create overly exclusive conceptions of American identity that disinherited those seen as somehow "un American."