Bartleby The Scrivener Analysis - 1203 Words

Herman Melville is an acclaimed author of the American Renaissance period and his most commendable works include â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener†. The story of â€Å"Bartleby† is not only a revelation of the business world of the mid-19th century but at the same time, it is also the manifestation of the emerging capitalistic lifestyle of perhaps New York’s most prominent street, Wall Street. Bartleby is a rather peculiar yet captivating figure. Bartleby’s life and death contribute to a sort of enigma for the reader and his employer. â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener† is a story that criticizes the monotonous day-to-day cycle that the modern working man is forcibly put in by society. With that being said, the death of Bartleby not only serves as a reflection†¦show more content†¦This lack of information is amplified onto the reader and even before his death, Bartleby is already a haunting figure in the text. Interestingly, Bartleby is the complete opposite of the narrator, in that we know a great deal about the life of the narrator, but almost nothing about Bartleby. The narrator is also shown to be a man with purpose, though self-serving, whereas Bartleby exists as an aimless being. â€Å"He ran a day and night line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically† (Melville 6). This passage gives the impression that Bartleby had no choice in the matter but rather he was conformed into a set task with no deviation from it. As the story furthers, Bartleby demonstrates an extraordinary inclination to not do certain things. In many ways, Bartleby is an embodiment of Melville himself. Both Bartleby and Melville were writers of sorts and they were both proficient at what they did until came a period where they decide to stop doing what was asked of them and instead did what they preferred to. Melville changed his style of writing novels and stories resulting in backlash from society. Bartleby changed his office behavior and often said, â€Å"I would prefer not to† to given tasks which angered his co-workers. Eventually, Bartleby and Melville had reached a point in their life where they decided toShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Bartleby, The Scrivener1810 Words   |  8 Pages In Herman Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,à ¢â‚¬  the scribe Bartleby works for a lawyer for a short period of time. During the time, the lawyer notices Bartleby’s odd characteristics which are similar to the characteristics of how lepers in The Bible are treated. In the short story, Melville infuses the story with symbols such as the Dead Letter Office and a key phrase that alludes to the narrator’s failure to answer the moral question that Bartleby presents of how lepersRead MoreBartleby The Scrivener Analysis1174 Words   |  5 Pages Herman Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street† is compared to the article â€Å"Occupy Wall Street in perspective† by Craig Calhoun. Both writings share a common idea of protest by â€Å"preferring not to†. The purpose of â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener† is to give insight on the life of ordinary people on Wall Street. While the purpose of â€Å"OWS† is to give insight on ordinary peoples lives during the protest. The article â€Å"OWS† shows why Bartleby in â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener† prefers not to andRead MoreCritical Analysis Of Bartleby The Scrivener1814 Words   |  8 PagesMelville’s â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener† and Willa Cather’s â€Å"Paul’s Case† present the complexity of both the experience and interpretation of loneliness by providing two antithetical lenses through which to view the title characters’ isolation. The end of â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener† is consolatory in nature, for Melville’s narrator sympathetically transfigures Bartleby from a symbol of difference to one of commonality. Melville implies that there is comfort to be sought in placing Bartleby within a largerRead MoreCritical Analysis Of Bartleby The Scrivener721 Words   |  3 Pages Herman Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener,† Melville questions the efficiency of property ownership in terms of wealth. Through the act ions of the lawyer and the scrivener, Bartleby, Melville portrays two contrary views concerning the importance of money in society. Meanwhile, the lawyer resolutely considers money as a commodity, assigning all materialistic items a dollar value. Bartleby indirectly implies his belief that money purposely acting as a concept openly disregarding and opposing itsRead MoreBartleby, the Scrivener Story Analysis535 Words   |  3 Pagesso, you could relate with the lawyer in the story â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener.† In this story, the narrator, who is a lawyer, has a simple man named Bartleby respond to a job opening as a scrivener. Unbeknownst to the lawyer, Bartleby did not act in the manner the lawyer would have expected. Bartleby is so outside of what is expected that it is almost as if he had died and no longer had to live up to society’s standards. In this story, Bartleby is portrayed as a lifeless zombie and is alone withRead MoreCharacter Analysis Of Bartleby, The Scrivener808 Words   |  4 Pages In his short-story â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,† Herman Melville presents an elderly Wall Street lawyer who has trouble dealing with the behavior of his employee Bartleby. The Lawyer, who is a major character in the story, serves as the first-person narrator, which helps readers understand his thoughts and feelings regarding the plot and its characters. This technique allows one to infer that the Lawyer is not a round character; there is no complexity in identifying with theRead MoreCharacter Analysis : Bartleby, The Scrivener And Lusus Naturae Essay1642 Words   |  7 PagesCharacter Analysis Choosing between the two stories we were given was more of a challenge than I originally thought it would be. â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener† and â€Å"Lusus Naturae† are completely different stories, but both bizarre and interesting in their own ways. For me, I found one captured my interest slightly more. I found the narrator in â€Å"Lusus Naturae† compelling because of how she handles her affliction. Here you have a young girl who from the age of seven until the time of her assumed deathRead Moreâ€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener† and A Sorrowful Woman: Character Analysis1695 Words   |  7 Pagesreaders with characters that have two similar but very different stories that end in the same result. In Herman Melville’s story â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener† readers are presented with Bartleby, an interesting and minimally deep character. In comparison to Gail Godwin’s work, â€Å"A Sorrowful Woman† we are presented with a nameless wom an with a similar physiological state as Bartleby whom expresses her feelings of dissatisfaction of her life. Here, a deeper examination of these characters their situations andRead MoreThe School Of Marxist Criticism1703 Words   |  7 Pagesimportant to remember because there were really not an idea of a working class in this point of time. To make this whole process into smaller detailed approaches I will break it down to six small key vocabulary words, which I will hopefully use in my analysis. One of those keys is proletariat, which in other words means the working class people who perform all of the labor which in real life situations make the majority of the population today. The second is bourgeois which is the upper class and theyRead More Comparing Loss of Self in Soldiers Home, Pauls Case, and Bartleby1442 Words   |  6 PagesLoss of Self in Hemingways Soldiers Home, Cathers Pauls Case, and Melvilles Bartleby the Scrivener  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   Hemingways Soldiers Home, Cathers Pauls Case, and Melvilles Bartleby the Scrivener all present a loss of self. These stories prove that there is a fine line between finding ones self and losing ones self. I believe this loss can occur at any age or station of life. This idea is seen in each storys main character. Hemingways Soldiers Home depicts a young man in