Essays on Scrivener

Abstract

“Bartleby the Scrivener” is a marvelous short story of the American nineteen century that has been discussed greatly from various disciplinary perspectives over the last century. Bartleby has been seen as a revolutionary figure who intentionally disrupts the capitalist system and has been traced to numerous real people, including Thoreau, Emerson, and even Melville himself. Critics have attached numerous equivalences to the protagonist; therefore, it is important to study the historical, political, and cultural context to choose the proper one. “Bartleby the Scrivener” demonstrated not only allusion to specific people and conflicts in New York but also showed class ...

The modern society places huge expectations of conformity on the individual, forcing them to question their identity and place in the society. Parental presence and acceptance, class, income, race and physical appearance become important in how well individuals get accustomed to the often rigid demands of the society they live in. Philosophers, poets and novelists throughout history have written about the feeling of abandonment by a parental figure or a class and the resultant agony it brings to their protagonists. Werther in The Sorrows of Young Werther, the creature in Frankenstein, Lily Briscoe in To The Lighthouse and Bartleby ...

The character of Bartleby is the most interesting narrative from the narrator of Bartleby the Scrivener. The narrator describes Bartleby as “one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and, in his case, those were very small”. It is important to note that before describing Bartley, the narrator first describes other characters working in the law office. The description of the first scrivener is that of Turkey who the narrator describes as excellent in the morning but poor in the afternoon. The narrator also describes Nippers as ambitious and whose character is directly ...

The setting of the novel is in a small law office on the Wall Street. The focus of the narrative is more on the personality of one employee, Bartleby. The author tells the story through a narrator. The authors use of a narrator in the novel ensures that the reader gets as close as possible to Bartleby. This approach enables the reader to perceive everything through the senses of main character’s employer thereby identifying with the feelings of the narrator. This approach evokes the emotions of the reader in a way that the reader feels duty-bound to try to solve the mystery ...

Introduction

The development of English as a first or second language comprises four strategic domains. These include listening, reading, speaking and writing. An English language learner can either attend classes to learn the language from a teacher or tutor or may simply learn through association with frequent English as the way children learn language from their parents and peers. In the class contexts, learning of English required skills from the tutor as well as other learning materials like audio-visuals that are meant to reinforce written or spoken words from the teacher. The learning of English focuses on a few critical areas (Scrivener, 2005). ...

The story of “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” is a playful elaboration of the theme of race, charity and selfishness developed over the elements of legal, ethical and social bindings. The story revolves around the character of Bartleby and his conduct that interweave the proceedings towards a logical illustration of concepts. The plot of the story revolves around the tussle of the two characters (narrator and Bartleby) of the story around the issue of lodging at place instigating interpretations of property rights and the law. The elaboration over the various concepts and their subsequent interpretations are defined by ...

Self-realization

Introduction The idea of self-realization is highly controversial especially in an environment where external factors have a high potential of affecting one’s decision. Self-realization describes the aspect of accomplishment of the possibility of a person’s personality. This entails freeing self from social and institutional norms by assuming a liberal perspective that is informed by personal beliefs. Various scholars have critically evaluated the subject of self-realization by attempting to illustrate real life incidents that describe the practicability of this idea. However, these scholars have adopted diverse and contrasting perspectives while describing the concept. Some of the scholars who have raised strong ...

A comparison between two ‘black sheep’

A Hunger Artist and Bartleby 2 Abstract There are certain people with strange behaviors that are usually out of conception for others in their vicinity. There are two short stories- A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka and Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville which depict the stories of two peculiar characters. Both were stuck with something painful or strange in their lives and refused completely to behave normally or in any compliance with the society. Both the characters had their reasons. And hence, no one could try reasoning with them successfully. This short essay illuminates the comparison ...

“Bartleby the Scrivener” is a story written by Melville. The story is defined by difficulty in interpretation as well as understanding following the creativity of the writer. There are several critics that have been brought in as stands for different interpretations of the story. Outstanding presentation is defined by proper representation of characters matched to creative elements of writing. The plot of the story is extremely straightforward. The lawyer, who is a man of sixty of age, employed on Wall Street hires a copyist, who seemed indifferent from other copyists, though the lawyer is used to peculiar copyists. Bartleby is unique. ...

In Herman Melville’s ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’ is alienation, a character sketch of Bartleby is provided by the narrator of the story, a Wall Street lawyer, who hires him as a scrivener, a law copyist. Bartleby is described by the lawyer “one of the strangest [scriveners] [he] ever saw, or heard of” (Melville). Like the readers, the lawyer himself knows little of Bartleby’s life before he hired him. “Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from original sources and in his case, those are very few” (Melville). At first, Bartleby appears to be too normal, and the ...

Learning - Methodology and Patterns

- INTRODUCTION The process of acquiring a second/foreign language has evolved and it is permanently changing, developing in order to facilitate as much as possible learners in their aim of learning a new language, but also teachers, in their task to teach a second/foreign language in an efficient manner. It is becoming increasingly significant for teachers to be up to date with any developments in the process of efficiently preparing the methodology of a second/foreign language course and they need to permanently maintain an open mind and a pro – active approach to the new teaching methods, testing them in the classroom setting. ...

"Bartleby the Scrivener" and Germinal - The Virtue of Refusing Labor The relationship of man to his labor is tied inextricably to his relationship with society; the way in which he handles the responsibilities given to him is often a reflection of how he reacts to the world around him. When man chooses to stop his work, it is often in resistance to a particular set of circumstances or events: for example, the way labor is rewarded in a society. If it is insufficient, either monetarily or metaphysically, one may simply decide to stop working. This relationship is often explored in ...

Today, when someone hears the name of Jane Eyre, a classic story of female emancipation and personal development, struggle against society-imposed norms and unjust gender segregation system in times when woman was treated as nothing but men’s addition and reason for his pride and showing-up are imagined. Indeed, the story of Jane Eyre is nothing new for the modern society, just as two centuries ago, there are places in the modern world, where women do not favor equal rights with men, where the main role of woman is to serve and obey to male malicious will and desire to ...

The Scrivener’

Perhaps the most sophisticated aspect of Melville’s story is in how effectively he lures the reader into focusing on the character of Bartleby. The scrivener’s inscrutability is oddly compelling and invites one to try and “understand” Bartleby, to fashion a diagnosis, even imagine a treatment or cure. But the story is about perspective itself, the perspective of the lawyer, who can only assess and try to make sense of his enigmatic clerk within the confines of his own singular world view. True, his is the ethic of Wall Street and the pragmatic rationalism that defines the class of people ...

This is a story about a successful lawyer who is in need of an assistant. Due to this situation he hires a scrivener to assist in the daily operations at the law firm. Bartleby is the lucky candidate who is hired. Initially, he is a quiet efficient and anti social man. He works well as a scrivener but completely refuses to do any other jobs within the office (Melville, 2009). The other employees are shocked at his conscious refusal to be versatile but there is little they can do because it is his personal choice and h is good at his official duties. He ...

Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” tells the tale of the titular scrivener, a poor, strange young man whom a lawyer takes in to help take copies at his law firm. Despite things working out well at first, Bartleby soon takes to increasingly erratic and strange behavior, including refusing to proofread a document several times over. As he works less and less, and starts living at the office, the lawyer becomes worried about him, until Bartleby just gets imprisoned, only to starve to death some time later. The character of Bartleby is an interesting and enigmatic one; the mystery of his behavior ...

The short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville, presents one of the most captivating rebellions in American literature–captivating due to its decidedly indistinct nature. The narrator of this short story is a lawyer who wishes to employ a new scrivener with the aim of increasing the competence of his Wall Street law firm as well as to calm the temperaments of two other scriveners, Nippers and Turkey, one of who suffers from chronic indigestion and the other is an alcoholic. Initially, when Bartleby is hired for this job, he produces large volumes of high-quality work to the delight of ...