Moby Dick confronts us with problems of language before we encounter anything about whales. The first word in the book—after the table of contents—is “Etymology,” and the tale of the “pale Usher,” and Hackluyt’s quote, immediately raise questions...

In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” the title character becomes an obstinate fixture in the life of the unnamed narrator. Throughout the short story, readers are able to observe the depth of Bartleby’s intrusion through the personal...

It’s been said that people come into our lives for a reason. They bring change in ways we least expect. “Bartleby, the Scrivener”, by Herman Melville, is the story of a lawyer who hires a new scribe for the office. At first, everything seems to go...

"Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lying on his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted Bartleby. I felt his hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet" (1173).

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Though the title may be Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville's short story is much more concerned with its nameless narrator than its title character. Addressing one man's concept of himself and how that concept must be reevaluated when...

In many of the short stories written by the American author Herman Melville (1819-1891), the main characters tend to exhibit some form of rebellion, usually against the normal dictates of society or against those who are in power. This trait is...

The characters of many poems, stories, and other works of art act as critics or representations of the author's society. American writers Benjamin Franklin and Herman Melville both commented on their respective eras using this method. Franklin...

The narrator and Bartleby - principle characters of Herman Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener - are opposite sides of the same coin. Their perspectives and connections to life seem to be similar. However, the narrator thrives in the...

In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” the setting contributes to the tone, the style, the theme and particularly the characterization of Bartleby, a scrivener working for the narrator. The parallelism between the setting and the...

Imagery is perhaps the most effective way to emphasize a theme. Ironically, Herman Melville chooses to use blankness as his image of choice, and while at first glance, the lack of something may not seem to be a powerful symbol, Melville’s...

Mordechai Anielewicz once asserted, “The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases to discriminate between good and evil: he becomes a slave...

"Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville is the story of a scrivener (a copyist) who has an unusually bleak disposition. Eventually, he takes it upon himself to refuse his boss' (the narrator's) requests for completing the very work for which...

In Lois Lowry’s award winning novel “The Giver,” the main character, Jonas, wonders incredulously, “How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made” (Lowry 48). Jonas is referring to the...

Herman Melville uses the concept of identity to highlight certain features of the characters in his short story Bartelby the Scrivener. The character of Bartelby illuminates the narrator’s unexplained feelings of innate compassion and pity through...

Herman Melville uses the concept of identity to highlight certain features of the characters in his short story Bartelby the Scrivener. The character of Bartelby illuminates the narrator’s unexplained feelings of innate compassion and pity through...

Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street” presents the mentally troubled title character through the perspective of an ignorant narrator. Having only encountered visible, physical disabilities before, the narrator does...

The 19th century was a time of great development, especially so in the realm of knowledge and representation of disability in literature. Although physical disabilities receive the majority of the attention, mental illness does appear in many...

There is, perhaps, no other American author whose work has been so hotly debated than Herman Melville. The white whale at the center of his most famous work, a juxtaposition of gender in America, an odd scrivener, and his much discussed story of a...

The abstract notion of fulfillment is one that creates a never ending search. The issue that prevails is that it is intangible and therefore cannot be classified with the least bit of certainty. Society on the other hand, is run by the rule of...

Never has there been a character quite so open to interpretation than that of Bartleby in Herman Melville’s short story Bartleby, the Scrivener. In the position of the reader, it is simple to blame Bartleby for an initial lack of understanding...

On the surface, Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” published in 1853, and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, published in 1996, may seem completely at odds with one another, yet there are some similarities between the themes and characters of...

For Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville, obsession is a central theme for their short stories. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator expresses a negative obsession for the pale-blue eye “with film over it” of an elderly man, but also...

In many of the short stories written by the American author Herman Melville (1819-1891), the main characters tend to exhibit some form of rebellion, usually against the normal dictates of society or against those who are in power. This trait is...

Before the truth surrounding the strange fate of Benito Cereno becomes apparent, Herman Melville effects an intriguing juxtaposition between Don Benito and Babo while the latter adheres to the toilette of his "master." Captain Delano, while...