Topic is about Bartleby: A Story of Wall Street. and poems - Essay Example

Melville has introduced to the reader a normal individual initially and he executes the assigned job with diligence to the entire satisfaction of his employer who is pleased with his skills. Something drastic happens next. Bartleby creates a desperate situation for himself, by refusing to proofread his work to start with and finally expressing unwillingness to copy altogether. This indicates the collapse of the inner world of Bartleby. He begins to behave strangely, stares out of the window at a blank wall.

In this story, "Bartleby the Scrivener" written by Herman Melville in 1853, two important phrases with which he begins the story are worth noting. The plot of the story relates to “Wall Street,” and Bartley stares at the “Blank Wall.” Wall Street is the symbol of materialism and capitalism and a place relating to financial dealings, profits and aggrandizement for wealth. Blank Wall symbolizes that all mental activities of the individual gazing at that wall have ceased and he has reached a point of no return.

The author creates the picture of living corpse in the personality of Bartley. He is of no use to his employers or his clientele, as they all are engaged in financial deals and negotiable instruments and would like to avail of efficient service. The narrator already has two imbalanced personalities as his employees, and the third addition creates more problems for him. When he comes for employment in response to an advertisement, he thinks that he is a calm and collected individual. But soon, for any work his standard answer is “I would prefer not to.

” To his question “Why do you refuse?" The answer is "I would prefer not to." (Melville, n.p.) The narrator paints the grim picture of Bartleby’s life, his living alone, the effect of loneliness, describing Wall Street as the desolate and ghost town on Sundays. His problematic bizarre behavior being obvious, Bartleby is getting fired from the job and is haunting the hallways directionless and destination-less. While recounting his landing in the prison, narrator visits the prison and is Bartleby rebuffing him for his generosity and goodwill, his refusal to eat and his subsequent death creating gloomy images.

Bartleby’s heart and mind must have turned like the graveyard with the deathly silence engulfing his life. The most disturbing twist to the story comes about with the developments that take place in the life of Bartleby before his death. The narrator understands that he works in a Dead Letter Office. A dejected Bartleby would have turned utterly cynical to work in that gloomy office. The letters symbolize mortality and are like individuals who have lost all hope in life. The narrator wonders why Bartleby has to suffer that much before the life force ebbs out of him and he feels helpless and resigns to the ways of the world and sighs, “Ah, Bartleby!

Ah, humanity!" (Melville, n. p.) Haunting death and insensitive humanity are the theme of the story. Death is also the theme in the poem, “Because I could not Stop for Death,” by Emily Dickinson. Unlike in the above story, the poet describes a friendly encounter with death. It is not tragic, but liberating. Each image in the poem describes something beautiful and profound, and the reader does not feel pain of any sort, identifying with the characters. Death is not the terror, but the one carrying out