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...
Europeans call upon Christendom to "applaud their courage and justice" as they persecute the natives for merely defending themselves. This simple, human response of self-defense is seen as evidence of barbarism by the Europeans. Of course, when the 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...
Moby Dick In Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the character of Captain Ahab is repeatedly referred to as a "monomaniac" (Melville Chapter 41). In other words, he is a man obsessively devoted to and possessed by a single idea -- to get revenge upon the w Continue Reading...
He later finds out that Bartleby has refused to leave the old office. Eventually, Bartleby is thrown into jail, where he perishes, after having refused to eat. Towards the end of the story, the narrator reveals that he has heard a rumor that Bartle 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...
Billy Budd Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" -- Guilty as Charged! With this singular word, "guilty" the reader draws his or her breath in horror, when contemplating the moral character of Billy Budd against the character of the sailor's accusers and Continue Reading...
Thus, Melville clearly portrays Billy as the greatest of innocents, infused with godlike looks and a pure heart. As this type of a character is realistically unlikely, many readers can quickly interpret Billy to be, therefore, a symbol of innocence. Continue Reading...
Starbuck's religious affinities do not assist him in preventing his captain from abandoning the campaign that he got involved in. In spite of his love for God, he is a very loyal individual and he is actually surprised to see the extent of his devo Continue Reading...
Bartleby The Finite and Infinite: An Analysis of Melville's "Bartleby" Herman Melville's Bartleby is a representational figure of modern malaise. A soul adrift in the universal modern ethos of self-assertion, Bartleby epitomizes the utter emptiness 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...
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...
Isolation in Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener:" A man alone and isolated in the midst of Wall Street, the major financial center of the U.S. Herman Melville's short story of "Bartleby the Scrivener" is a strange, almost plotless work of short fic Continue Reading...
Another fairly salient example of the irony between the relationship between Babo and Cereno is presented when Babo shaves the ship's captain. On a literal level, this incident appears highly indicative of the subservience of Babo to Cereno, since 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...
He determines that Bartleby suffers from a mental trauma. These actions come from a man of which the narrator and the readers know very little. It would seem logical for the narrator to assume Bartleby had suffered some cruel injustice. The narrator Continue Reading...
Additionally, the holy ritual of anointing the selected things for God's intentions is discussed as well in Moby Dick -- where Queequeg come to a decision that the whaling ship must be anointed and as a result, he alone come to a decision to anoint 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...
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...
The story is about a relationship, not just the fact Bartleby does not 'care' to work. Thompson, Graham. "Dead letters!....Dead men?': The rhetoric of the office in Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'. " Journal of American Studies 3-34.(2000): 39 Continue Reading...
Melville continues, "Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself" (Melville 159). Ahab may be mad, and t Continue Reading...
Bartleby the Scrivener, By Herman Melville The protagonist in this story by Herman Melville is the narrator, and Bartleby, a man of his own mind and a strong mind it is, is the antagonist. The narrator shows a disturbing lack of good judgment by cod Continue Reading...
You cannot hide the soul... I saw the traces of a simple, honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing abo Continue Reading...
" p. 162 Ahab has taken the power and autonomy given to him as a ship's captain and set himself against God and nature over the loss of his leg. It is this hubris that will bring the Pequod to her doom. By the end of the novel, Captain Ahab seems to Continue Reading...
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...
Melville and Clarel Introduction Herman Melville is typically mostly known for his novel Moby-Dick, but the prose writer turned to poetry in his later years after his novels (following Moby-Dick) failed to be best-sellers. Poetry, it was thought, wou Continue Reading...
Benito Cereno" by Herman Melville The theme of racial inequality in "Benito Cereno" by Herman Melville The novel "Benito Cereno" (1856) by Herman Melville is a literary work that contemplates and depicts the issue of slavery and racial discriminat Continue Reading...
Fiction Analysis Essay Analysis of "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville "Bartleby the Scrivener" remains one of the best-known fictional works by Melville. Analysts describe the art as arguably among the most challenging t 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...
But 'tis enough."(Melville, 161-162) the comparison of the whale with a wall emphasizes Ahab's maddening endeavor to break the ultimate resistance of truth and conquer it. Thus, he is not fascinated like Ishmael by the metaphysical, he wants to own Continue Reading...
And like a human being "owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere" (Chapter 85). And who knows, the whale may even be sup Continue Reading...
Billy Budd, Sailor There are many themes to be considered in Herman Melville's story of Billy Budd; individualism verses society, the vulnerability of innocence, and conscience verses law. In this paper we will explore the latter in the context of t Continue Reading...
Thoreau, Stowe, Melville and Douglas: Reflections on Slavery Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Beacher Stowe, Herman Melville and Fredrick Douglass all opposed the intuition of slavery in the United States in the middle of the nineteen century. This matt Continue Reading...
HAWTHORNE'S BIRTHMARK AND YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN Hawthorne was born 1804 and brought up in Salem, Massachusetts to a Puritan family. When Hawthorne was four, his father died. After this incident he was mostly in the female company of his two sisters, a Continue Reading...
National Women's Rights Convention of 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts, a convention dedicated to rallying important voices around the country for the cause of social reformation regarding the position of women. That the Convention took its name for Continue Reading...
The only material similarity between Prynne's scarlet "badge" and Faith's pink ribbons is that both are made of cloth and adorn some type of clothing, i.e., Faith's ribbons are part of her cap while Prynne's "badge" is sewn into her dress as needlew Continue Reading...
Symbolism in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Works Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the great nineteenth century masters of American fiction. "The Scarlet Letter" and "Young Goodman Brown" are two Hawthorne works that contain heavy symbolism of sin and immorali Continue Reading...
John Brown's Raid lead to the Civil War? In 1859, John Brown led an attack on a federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in Virginia with the hope of arming slaves for a revolt against their masters. The plot failed and Brown was captured and hanged. Nort Continue Reading...
Perhaps because he was writing in the wake of the Vietnam Era, Schroeder is highly conscious of the 'dammed if you do, damned if you don't' position anti-war politicians often find themselves, when it comes to morally and financially supporting the Continue Reading...
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter and the Minister's Black Veil Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864, is considered one of the great masters of American fiction, with tales and novels that reflect deep explorations of m Continue Reading...
