Comparing Melville Essay

Alex Quach Professor Peloquin ENGL 1302 04 November 2014 An Exploration of Bartleby and the Narrator Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” is about Bartleby—a scrivener at an office on Wall Street—and the narrator who owns the office. The story begins by explaining the characters, the narrator, Bartleby, Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut. It then continues to explain the actions of each character leading to the great conflict of the story. The setting changes start from when Bartleby

“Bartleby the Scrivener” is the story of a person who seems to be very displaced in society. He is not really sure what his purpose is and never really finds his way. Dan McCall focuses most of his critical work on the narrator, when the story is in fact about the character of Bartley. Dan’s critical work may be further persuading if he focused more of his writing on the actual character of Bartleby, whom the story is titled after. If “The Reliable Narrator” could have gone into more detail about

In Hawthorne’s fiction, he shows sin is inevitable and inherent. Sin is essential for growth as well. Everyone should not hide their original sin and be afraid of it. Hawthorne’s use of symbolism in his story “The birthmark” to reveal that sin is unavoidable and inborn. “In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death.” “Attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife; the deeper sank the hand, until at length

“Buccaneers and Pirates of our Coasts”, by Frank Richard Stockton, is a non-fiction, rollicking story of the origins of piracy and of the famous pirates of the coasts of the United States, such as Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, and Henry Morgan. The stories don’t cast pirates in the glowing light of modern day interpretations, in Stockton’s stories, pirates are bad guys! Stockton tries to show his audience that even old pirate stories can be entertaining as well as valuable. Although, the dramatic and

The reason I chose this passage is because the author, Herman Melville provides us an extensive amount of information about Benito Cereno, which helped me to picture how Cereno appears. Since Melville finally mentions about Cereno after 10 pages, I was interested in knowing how his name could become the title and how important he is. Melville uses fancier and more complicated words to make the passages sound literary instead of using simpler words. However, it makes me feel curious about Cereno more

Bartleby the Scrivener, a title for a story, and for a man. Bartleby worked in a monotonous job, doing the same boring thing everyday, and yet he seemed to be fully devoted to his work. His boss was not a hard man, but it is safe to say that he benefitted from Bartleby, at least, at first. Because of the devotion that Bartleby gave to his job and his boss, the business worked. This was not just the job of a scrivener, but instead a representation of everyone working under the heal of the rich. Bartleby

“Wall” Street “Bartleby the Scrivener,” a short story by Herman Melville,b describes the narrator’s experience employing an introverted and seemingly isolated scrivener in his office on Wall Street, the financial district of New York. However, the idea of “Wall” Street can be read more literally, seeing as the scrivener, Bartleby, seems to find himself constantly surrounded by walls. Bartleby is walled in, not only by physical walls, but by walls he puts up himself in order to preserve his isolation

involuntarily admit “nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance” (Melville 1111). Bartleby is an unornamented character, “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable”, who works “silently, palely, mechanically”, but he exercises immense command by declining to fulfil simple and undemanding requests (Melville 1108). In the development of events within the story, Bartleby’s passive resistance

After reading the story of Benito Cereno a main idea that is apparent would be natural slavery. In the story, Captain Delano discovers a ship that would appear to be ran by Benito Cereno. However, Cereno was not in charge due to the slave revolt against his ship. With assuming that the Africans on the ship were slaves, Delano was fooled multiply times into believing Cereno was in charge. This exploits the idea of natural slavery. With Delano already assuming the African’s on the ship were slaves

In Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, there are several themes that the author incorporates in his writing such as alienation, charity, and morality. Melville utilizes the actions of the young scrivener Bartleby not only to represent mankind, but also to reveal these underlying themes to the reader. In the first opening words of the short story, “I am a rather elderly man” we learn that the narrator of the story is an older gentleman who is a lawyer and is reflecting on things