Bartleby, The Scrivener
Although Melville's story of the scrivener would ostensibly seem to be about the mysterious stranger named Bartleby, it can more accurately be described as a story about the effect that Bartleby had on those around him, and p Continue Reading...
After all, he was performing his main tack quite well and in a continuous manner. The second time to refuses to perform a task his boss gives him happens to be in front of all the other employees. This new situation commands immediate reaction from Continue Reading...
Bartleby the Scrivener
Herman Melville's story "Bartleby the Scrivener" is an alternately comedic and tragic look at the relationship between an employer and his employee, and examining how this relationship plays out reveals the complexities of man Continue Reading...
Not having a will, becomes thus the only possibility to attain freedom and this thesis present in Schopenhauer's thinking seems to have protruded into Melville's convictions when he wrote the short tale.
Norberg, Peter. "On Teaching Bartleby." Levi Continue Reading...
Queequeg's Coffin
There are a thousands different ways for a man to lose himself and his soul - and a number of ways for him to be saved. Herman Melville presents us over the course of his work with a dozen different ways in which men find and lose Continue Reading...
Melville
Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" describes the drudgery of daily life in an office. The reader learns about the title scrivener from a well-meaning, good-natured lawyer who hires Bartleby to help in the office alongsid Continue Reading...
The narrator becomes restless in finding a solution to this new and unexpected problem that he encounters. All the knowledge and wisdom he thinks he has gathered in years of practicing an easy, uncomplicated way of acting are of no use to him now. T Continue Reading...
Bartleby and Akaky: A Struggle against Social Tide
Herman Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street is a story reminiscent of the emergence of nineteenth century white-collar working class in most cities in the United States and spe Continue Reading...
Melville and Irving
The dawn of the American nation brought with it a need for a decidedly American culture, one depicted with careful precision by many of the authors that came to paint the literary landscape of the new magnate across the Atlantic. Continue Reading...
' The narrator clearly believes in this system, which is why he is so determined, until the bitter end, to force Bartleby to work, rather than firing him immediately. The narrator describes himself as an "eminently safe man." because he supports the Continue Reading...
Walt Whitman and Herman Melville
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and "Bartleby the Scrivener"
Walt Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" are set in New York City during the early years of the Continue Reading...
Whitman uses simile effectively ("The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings") and uses metaphors effectively to link himself with others that have crossed the river in the past ("The dark threw its patches down upon me also Continue Reading...
Willa Cather and Herman Melville both explore themes of psychological and social isolation in their short stories. In Cather's "Paul's Case," the title character is a vibrant young man whose passion and creativity is constrained by his pitiful life i Continue Reading...
Therefore, both characters failed to have positive reviews from their employer; yet, by compensation, they managed to remain employed. The discrepancy between the assignments they were paid to manage and the actual results in fact will weight more b Continue Reading...
Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" also uses a heightened situation to illustrate a greater human truth. In realistic terms, Bartleby's refusal to work is absurd, at least to the lengths which the title character carries his impulse to "pre Continue Reading...
American Literature
Listen to Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God preached. Discuss in the discussion group.
Jonathan Edwards gives us a perfect example of the Calvinist beliefs of the Puritan settlers in early New England. Edwards studied theolog Continue Reading...
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"A Good Man is Hard to Find" ends with the family being executed by the Misfit, a murderous outlaw. Although O'Connor's story is evidently supposed to be humorous, it gives the reader pause to note that the family will die without ever exchanging Continue Reading...
I was also disgusted by the jocks' inattention to their grades (or anything, for that matter, of serious importance - i.e., do any of these "special" adolescents ever so much as read a book; help a friend (with no "hidden agenda"); or volunteer com Continue Reading...