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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Interesting question! Your definition of Bartleby's life edict will depend upon your own personal inclinations. Does Bartleby's phrase of "I would prefer not to" (spoken fourteen times in the...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Nippers and Turkey together form a kind of "clock" that marks the passage of the work day. Turkey is an older man who is an admirable worker in the morning, but, once dinner is done at 12, becomes...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Near the end of Bartleby, the Scrivener, Bartleby dies in the Tombs prison, where has been sent because of his homelessness. Bartleby dies of starvation in prison because he prefers not to eat...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The narrator is a kind-hearted man, but he cannot get Bartleby to budge from his offices or do any work. He first tries to coax him to leave. He also tries to bribe him with money, but Bartleby...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The lawyer who narrates the story has long been puzzled over Bartleby's behavior. Why did his scrivener, whose job it was to spend his days copying out and then checking the accuracy of legal...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
This answer is perfectly legitimate, but ignores the deeper significance of Bartleby’s “I prefer not to.” Melville is trying to dramatize the difference between goal-driven action and...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
In Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener," the narrator shows apathy toward Bartleby in a number of ways, although I find the narrator's most remarkable example of apathy to be his passive...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The subtitle, “A Story of Wall Street,” appears to refer to the famous street in Manhattan, and would seem to support a particular reading of the story, in which Bartleby can be seen as an...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The major characters of Melville's "Bartleby" are as follows: The narrator, described as "a rather elderly man" who holds the office of Master in Chancery and acts as a lawyer dealing in the...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
In Chapter 21 ("XXI,") as the men make their way to the cell known as "One Hundred and Five, North Tower," the mood is tense and spooky. They enter the room, and here's the narrator's direct...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The first paragraph of the story has a lot of information in it, but most of the information has to do with things we infer about the narrator from the way he writes, rather than what he actually...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The lawyer (who also serves as narrator) experiences many conflicting emotions towards Bartleby throughout the text. Initially, the lawyer views Bartleby as an efficient copier who happens to be a...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
This fascinating short story/novel by the author of Moby Dick is most striking because it takes place in the rule-bound world of Wall Street, where conventions both financial and social are rigid...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Bartleby is a very funny story, but as is the way with Melville, the humor is very dark. I think the humor comes from Bartleby's complete passivity and the lawyer's inabilty to have any impact on...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
When Bartleby begins his automatic response "I would prefer not to," the lawyer can not believe it. What makes the lawyer bewildered and unable to discipline or fire him is how calm and confidently...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Sympathy with characters is one way of reacting to a work of fiction, but it is not either the only way of reacting nor are all stories designed to elicit such reactions. In this case, the...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener is often used in literature classes as an illustration of the application of Derrida's theory of deconstruction to literary texts. This aspect of...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Oh my, there is ASTOUNDING significance in Bartleby's frequent quotation of "I would prefer not to" in that dear Bartleby is exemplifying the anti-Transcendentalist viewpoint of Melville. In this...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Early in the story the tone is "normal" and reflects the work setting. The scene is set in a typical office with typical workers, albeit each with idiosyncrasies. In short, it is a normal office...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
I think that one distinct relationship between all three works is the way in which alienation is developed. The construction of alienation in each is one where the individual is divided between...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The images that Melville brings out in his short story bear much in way of similarity to the world in the film Office Space. Granted, that the tone of both are fundamentally different. While...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
1. The other scriveners are introduced before Bartleby in order to present their individual characteristics before they are affected by Bartleby's presence. While they are not the perfect workers,...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The deliberate withholding or release of information is a powerful storytelling tool; it can heighten or ease tension, or alter the reader's perspective on events. It is fundamental to the "twist"...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Though it may not seem like it at first glance, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is almost as much about work as is Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street."...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
There are several interesting historical question associated with Melville's story about Bartleby, the scrivener. I can suggest three possibilitites, each of which would add to the rich texture of...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
From the start of Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street," the scrivener is presented as a man of extreme "motionless;" he is pallid (or pale), pitiable and forlorn. Pallid is...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Loneliness is an emotion; aloneness is a physical/psychological state. It has been clear for a century that Poe’s poem is a sincerely emotional reaction to loss, probably romantic. The narrator...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
According to the eNotes Study Guide: "Bartleby the Scrivener" was written by Herman Melville in 1853 and was first published in Putnam's Magazine in the November/December issue of that year....
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
This short story by Herman Melville is an excellent example of the author's style and his power in creating memorable images and scenes through his words. Although in this short story the first...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The beginning of this story introduces us to the narrator. It is clear from the opening sentence that this is a man who has reached the end of his career, and he is somebody who has enjoyed a...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
"Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tall of Wall Street" is open to so many interpretations. It can certainly be interpreted as a manifesto of political and/or social resistance. Consider the details....
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Herman Melville's story of a most passive Bartleby is, indeed, ambiguous, but the ambiguity is well designed. Is Bartleby another side of the narrator, "the other end of [his] chambers, or is he a...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
If we consider the narrator's sorrowful last speech in Bartleby the Scrivener--"Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!"--then we are drawn to at least one conclusion about the story's purpose: that is, to...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
I believe it was Herman Melville's intention to draw a sharp contrast between Bartleby and his employer. Bartleby is a loner, an introvert. He wants to work alone and to be left alone. The narrator...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
In Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street," a great deal of what drives Bartleby's boss is a sense of complete mystification, then concern, and finally frustration. But...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Well, to answer this question you would need to consider the ubiquitous references to walls in this text, that starts, of course, with the fact that this story is denoted as a tale of "Wall...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The two terms you are using here are later developments in literature. Marxism is primarily a political term, which when applied to literature, has to have more than just a business connection –...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
At first, Bartleby appears to be a boon to the practice, as he produces a large volume of high-quality work. One day, though, when asked by the narrator to help proofread a copied document,...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
A Wall-Street attorney, the narrator is approximately sixty years old, having held for years a prominent position in his field as Master in Chancery. Widely viewed as a sinecure, the attorney's...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
I often think of Bartleby as a character to imitate when I am given yet more work by my superior, and wish I had the courage to adopt the same methods, though, to be honest, I think we can say that...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The story’s larger symbolism comes into play when asking about the narrator’s motives and cessation of effort. This piece fictionalizes Man’s impotence in the face of the inevitable; at its...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Many critics see this excellent story as a critique of the way that American society was beginning to embrace capitalism as a doctrine that would come to transform and define it. Note the way that...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The protagonist is the character who changes the status quo. For example, in Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire it is obvious that Blanche Dubois is the protagonist, since she enters...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Possibly the best example of an introvert in all literature is Herman Melville’s Bartleby, who works as a scrivener, a law-clerk whose chief duty is to make exact copies of important documents in...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
In Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street, some experts look at our title character "in symbolic terms." I do not agree. One theme in the story is individualism. He is...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
The subtitle of this excellent story, to my mind, should draw our attention to the way in which walls are a prevalent symbol in the story. Consider how the setting of the narrator's offices are...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Yes, it is interesting to note the way in which the enigmatic character of Bartleby is presented as always being hemmed in in some way. Consider how the office of the narrator only overlooks walls...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
At first I would have, without hesitation, stated that Bartleby is the main character in the short story of "Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street," by Herman Melville. The story is named...
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Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street
Carl Jung, famous psychiatrist and long-time associate of Sigmund Freud, coined the terms “introvert” and “extravert” which quickly became part of all modern languages. Possibly the best...