Relating Fiction to Real Life

Are fiction stories always based on imagination? Or does it come from someone’s reality? Have you ever asked yourself why people read fiction stories? Either told through movies or books, fiction stories are ways people find to escape from their reality. However, most of the fiction stories come from people’s life, or are based in a real fact in order to be credible. In some ways, the truth must be distorted to be understandable, because sometimes it can be too complex to be explained. Both Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi, and How To Tell a True Story, by Tim O’Brien, attempt to discover the truth even if it was exemplified by fiction,

In Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”, the narrator is on the hunt for a new copyist in his office. From what we can tell of our narrator, he is an unambitious, vanilla fellow but still has an air of condescension about him. He always thinks that he knows what is best for his employees, although in actuality, he knows very little. Enter Bartleby: the “incurably forlorn” and “sedate” answer to his prayers (330). Bartleby is a quiet man who gains employment at the law office of our narrator. Overall, he seemed to be a good worker who had a few kinks the narrator thought that he could iron out, but to no avail. At the end of his account, the narrator says “Ah Bartleby, Ah humanity” which suggests that he sees Bartleby as a representation of all people. This is because the narrator thinks of Bartleby and all other people as lesser than him and in need of his help.

Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” reveals different themes such as isolation and human morality test. In the story, the narrator runs a law firm and has a new Scrivener [Bartleby] who the narrator describes as“ the strangest I ever saw or heard of” (661). For the first few days, Bartleby is seen to be working fine, however, one day Bartleby just responds with “I would prefer not to” when anyone assigns a task to Bartleby (674). The real problems start to arise when Bartleby sleeps and eats at the office while denying to work or leave. The narrator illustrates the two main themes of human morals and isolation throughout the story with the use of biblical references to Bartleby as a leper and shows symbolism of the

Herman Melville is an acclaimed author of the American Renaissance period and his most commendable works include “Bartleby, the Scrivener”. The story of “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. “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

In Herman Melville's short story, Bartleby, the Scrivener, the narrator's attitude towards Bartleby is constantly changing, the narrator's attitude is conveyed through the author's use of literary elements such as; diction-descriptive and comical, point of view-first person, and tone-confusion and sadness.

Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” was written in the mid-nineteenth century, during a time when economic revolutions swept across Europe and class riots erupted in New York. Inspired by this environment, Melville depicts the working class as laborers struggling to survive the game of life and achieve their goals. The working class possesses a very hectic and repetitive life that often leads to unhappiness. This is demonstrated in the office where Bartleby and his coworkers, Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut work. They all exhibit signs of depression, they all appear easily bothered, and they all possess an odd and unique quality. The context of the story and the environment in which it was written encourages an analysis from the lens

The character of Bartleby in Herman Melville’s novella “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street” is a person who refuses to become an object in capitalistic society. Initially, he is the perfect example of the objectification and mechanization of humans in the workplace. In essence, Bartleby is a machine that continually produces. Ultimately, he begins to resist the mind numbing repetition of his tasks and the mechanization of his life. The other main character, the narrator, is a facilitator of the capitalistic machine. He dehumanizes his employees by ensuring that their free will is denied in the workplace using objectifying nicknames, providing a workplace devoid of human touch and connection,; and perpetuating mechanized, repetitive work. Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener” shows the dehumanizing effects of working in a capitalistic environment and ultimately suggests that one must conform to a standard way of life or will cease to exist.

Throughout much of Melville’s narrative in “Bartleby the Scrivener” we, through the eyes of the lawyer, really only view Bartleby as an enigmatic figure, an “other”, more so than a person. This comes to a head when the lawyer finds out on a Sunday morning that Bartleby has illegally taken up residence in his office, an act that would no doubt infuriate the average person. We are privy to the lawyer's thought process as his emotional response to the discovery evolves from pity to disgust. "...a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion...up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections;

In "Bartleby the Scrivener," Melville chooses his order of character introduction in order to illustrate what kind of man the lawyer is. The entire story depends upon the lawyer's reactions and responses to Bartleby and upon the reader accepting the lawyer's reactions, responses, and actions as wholly sincere and in keeping with his character. The descriptions of these characters are also really part of the setting. The office is cramped and uninspiring, and those who work there could be considered misfits. Turkey and Nippers together make one effective worker, and Ginger Nuts is nothing but a glorified errand boy, though he's supposed to be an apprentice. Once we meet them, the tone of the office is set and helps prepare us for the inimitable Bartleby the scrivener who "would prefer not to."

Melville intends something less black and white with more gray shading. Melville uses dramatic irony and grim humor in “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. This is to show the reader how the Lawyer assumes he is a safe, successful and powerful man with extensive control in his polite society until he hires a man named Bartleby. This relationship is slowly revealed to be quite a conundrum for the Lawyer and the reader. Melville shows how the Lawyer

“In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it. In nineteen minutes, you can revenge” (Picoult). Those words are of the opening lines of Jodi Picoult’s best seller, Nineteen Minutes. Although this novel is heart wrenching, and cuts into the ‘grays’ of school shootings, it is anything but original. Lead character, Peter Houghton, is an almost perfect profile replication of 1999’s Columbine shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. A simple personaltiy analysis will reveal that both Peter and Columbine Shooters suffer from parental neglect, the violent virtual world, ruthless peers, as well as easy access to weapons.

Bartleby the Scrivener" is one of American writer Herman Melville's best forms of symbolism. I believe comes from the job held in the dead letter office. We can figure that Bartleby's real death comes from the work he did in the dead letter office. The narrator suggests that it was the empathy of these letters that drove Bartleby to his death. Symbolism adds to our understanding of the protagonist because the feeling the narrator receives from the time he first meets Bartleby is that death is all around him. It is the dead letter office job is that symbolized the death in the

Wall Street is commonly regarded as a vicious battleground occupied by thousands of money-hungry individuals that wish to strike it big by climbing the corporate ladder by any means necessary. While many win and many more lose everything as people try to succeed on Wall Street, Melville sees a problem outside the bounds of losing and gaining money. Melville realized that an existential battle was simultaneously taking place within the minds of these young people. In Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener, Melville emits contempt for society and its corrupt values by creating underdeveloped characters that lack typical characteristics of fully established individuals. With work, money, profits, and productivity at the center of the universe,

The characterization in the film “Bartleby,” by Jonathan Parker is different in comparison to that of the characters of Herman Melville’s short story. For example, Herman Melville’s narrator describes himself as a “rather elderly man” who is a lawyer (Meyers, 2017, pp. 126). However, in the film by Jonathan Parker, the narrator is a record keeper who appears to be in his early forties and is not as serious as the lawyer of Herman Melville's version. However, the narrator is not the only characters that Jonathan Parker changes. The characters of the short story and film version are different people. For instance, Herman Melville writes about his two clerks and office boy. The first clerk the narrator nicknames Turkey, "a short, pursy Englishman, of about my own age- that is, somewhere not far from sixty" (Meyers, 2017, pp. 127). The narrator tells his listeners that Turkey is only working efficiently in the mornings, “I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours” (Meyers, 2017, pp. 128). This description fits the vision of a senior man working at a law form part time. The next character introduced in Herman Melville’s short story is his other clerk Nippers, described as a “whiskered, sallow, and upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man, of about five and twenty” (Meyers, 2017, pp. 128).

In today’s America it is becoming harder and harder to know what is truth and what is fiction. The best way to have a complete understanding is to look at the facts and the statistics about whatever you want to know more about. For example when people look at Islam there are numerous misconceptions that people hold with or without knowing it.