Look at the bottom of the page to identify which edition of “Bartleby the Scrivener” they are referring to. The lawyer ends up firing Bartleby; however Bartleby prefers not to leave. Bartleby the Scrivener Essay. But is the grass a metaphor for hope, and life’s persistence, the possibility of survival and beauty in a harsh environment? Nippers’ ambition mirrors Turkey’s resignation to his place and the sad uneventfulness of his career, the difference coming about because of their respective ages. At work here is what Toni Morrison (an admirer of Melville) would call a shortage of love. Using the essay topics for “Bartleby the Scrivener” below in conjunction with the list of important quotes at the bottom of the page, you should have no trouble connecting with the text and writing an excellent essay on “Bartleby the Scrivener” Before you begin, however, please get some useful tips and hints about how to use PaperStarter.com in the brief User's Guide…you'll be glad you did. Get Your Custom Essay on Bartleby the Scrivener Essay Just from $13,9/Page, We will write a custom essay sample on Bartleby the Scrivener Essay specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page. Eventually, Bartleby refuses to do anything at all and simply stares vacantly at the wall. Their vices are also parallel, in terms of being appropriate vices for each man’s respective age. The Dead Letter Office is a place of supreme gloom, where evidence of human mortality and the futility of our best intentions would have been unavoidable. He’s also passively stubborn and very set in his ways. Your Answer is very helpful for Us Thank you a lot! To leave room for interpretation IV. This left the narrator along with the reader to wonder whether it was this job, sad and depressing as it is, that drove Bartleby to his strange madness. You can rewrite some parts or paraphrase to make the text unique. The Lawyer has two other scriveners, Turkey and Nippers, and an errand boy, Ginger Nut but finds Bartleby to be the most interesting of all the scriveners. Ironically, on the day his pity turns to revulsion, the narrator was on his way to Church. When the narrator visits again a few days later, he discovered Bartleby dead. Think about the socio-economic array of—or gap between—characters in “Bartleby the Scrivener” and decide what sort of commentary Melville might be making about class distinctions and system of government in this time period in the United States. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill” (24-25). This is because it replaces the hustle of having to go through the thesis manually so as to check for errors. Note that these two share an office room, just as Nippers and Turkey do. If his action is something any human would do, then the abandonment of Bartleby is a comment on humanity. All five incorporate at least one of the themes found in “Bartleby the Scrivener” and are broad enough so that it will be easy to find textual support, yet narrow enough to provide a focused clear thesis statement. Incidentally, the Halls of Justice are called “The Tombs.”. At night, this isolation also includes the absence of people. “The heart of the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strange magic, through the clefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds, had sprung” (45). The reader is left wondering what happened to this rather strange man and attempting to describe or understand Bartleby is complicated. It should be pointed out that the narrator’s problems with his other employees have to do with their unreliability, sloppiness, drunkenness, and flaring tempers. If you contact us after hours, we'll get back to you in 24 hours or less. Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/analysis-of-bartleby-the-scrivener-essay, This is just a sample. The grass then becomes battered, trapped life, with no hope of escaping the “Egyptian character” of the Tombs. Bartleby had starved. For one, we know that Bartleby is a complex character and passively prefers not to discuss his life and his past. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet, Byron, would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say, five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand” (991). The narrator senses that there are parallels between himself and the scrivener, and Bartleby’s gloom infects him: “Before, I had never experienced aught but a not unpleasing sadness. Yet the narrator goes on to describe the transformation as defensive. Bartleby the Scrivener Thesis Statements and Important Quotes. These thesis statements for “Bartleby the Scrivener” offer a summary of different elements that could be important in an essay but you are free to add your own analysis and understanding of the plot or themes to them. The story draws the reader in emotionally as if though the reader, like the Narrator, is involved in trying to deal personally with Bartleby. 160). Even though he speaks of his compassion to his clerks Turkey and Nippers, there is a way in which he might be completely out of touch with their actual needs and real feelings. Don’t waste Your Time Searching For a Sample, Get Your Job Done By a Professional Skilled Writer. Battle Writers Block and get inspiration for your assignment from our database of model essays, example papers and research documents. We learn also that Bartleby lost the Dead Letter Office job due to an administration change. But no; I verily believe that buttoning himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat had a pernicious effect upon him—upon the same principle that too much oats are bad for horses” (989-990). “Bartleby the Scrivener” Outline I. Here you will also find the best quotations, synonyms and word definitions to make your research paper well-formatted and your essay highly evaluated. The decline of Bartleby pointed out through numerous details of the story, forces the reader to make conclusions about the Bartleby’s character. spaced), Parent topic: He describes the character of the masonry as “Egyptian,” and mentions the “soft imprisoned turf” growing underfoot. The image of birds dropping seeds, which grow in spite of the hostile environment, is lyrical and powerful. Bartleby is homeless and does not eat much. The desolation of Wall Street is part of Bartleby’s essential perception of it. com/lit/melvillestories/section2. Death imagery is abundant. Thesis Statement / Essay Topic #2: “Dead Letters” and Heavy Words in “Bartleby the Scrivener”. The scenes in which the narrator asks the advice of his employees are always comical in tone. The narrator visits Bartleby to find him in the same state of mind preferring to even eat. com/129/. This story intimates a dichotomy between the people who profit off of such business, and those more in the working class like Bartleby, Turkey, and Nippers, and the long arduous work they are subjected-to should be brought out as they are essentially human copy machines. The literal desolation at night is paralleled by the spiritual desolation during the day. It therefore saves you a lot of time and energy that you could direct elsewhere. Each man reacts according to the dictates of the time of day: if it is morning, Nippers is fiery and Turkey benign, and if it is afternoon, Turkey is belligerent and Nippers calm. The narrator also makes an interesting move by describing the office as a site of savagery. When Nipper’s was on, Turkey’s was off; and vice versa. Nippers and Turkey are doubles of each other. When Nipper’s was on, Turkey’s was off; and vice versa”. Plot Overview B. Thesis Statement: The short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” is very difficult to interpret. Increasingly, Bartleby is described in ghostly terms, and a perceptive reader will soon realize that the ghost is in some ways the narrator’s phantom double. Notice also that there is a double meaning in the exchange. “He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero, which, as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six inches above my head” (999). He is also described as a ghost. The final rumor is haunting and dark. When the narrator greets Bartleby in prison, he’s condescending to him, speaking to him in the way that one condescends to the mad: “And see, it is not so sad a place as one might think. From the beginning, the description of Bartleby is striking. His obligations, in one sense, are nothing. However, I am going to interpret what I believe the reader should know for certain about Bartleby and why Melville provides so little explicit information about Bartleby. Living is not the opposite of death, but a condition continually assaulted and permeated by it. Thesis Statement / Essay Topic #4: A Critique of Capitalism in “Bartleby the Scrivener”. Death itself is the only constant. Follow the structure of this paper to have a better understanding of how literature analysis looks. 986-1011 in Fiction 100: an Anthology of Short Fiction. Something about the space is dehumanizing, and makes murder possible. Look, there is the sky, and here is the grass.” Bartleby’s reply is concise and curt: “I know where I am” (43). The narrator never does make it to Church that day, and the symbolism is obvious. Copyright © 2012 Paperstarter.com. We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. The real death is more than an event in time: death is diffuse, a spiritual gloom pervading the empty Wall Street landscape, the imposing stonework of the prison, and the Dead Letter Office where Bartleby supposedly worked. Bartleby is a creature unable to adapt to this world, because he is too honest about what appeals to him. The description of the office is incredibly bleak: on one side, the windows open onto a light shaft, and on the other, the windows look out onto a brick wall. At first, the narrator calls our attention to the desolateness of the office and of Wall Street: “Of a Sunday, Wall Street is deserted as Petra; and every night of every day it is an emptiness” (23). Ah, humanity!” Analyze this exclamation: it maybe that Melville is making a strong claim about what it means to act according to a certain concept of humanness, that being the characters other than Bartleby (Turkey, Nippers, Ginger Nut, and the narrator himself). All rights reserved. But we have been warned that the narrator is a safe man who thinks the easiest path is also the best. . 24-25, above). Bartleby will detach from the world in stages, beginning with this first statement. Ah, humanity!”) is of a sadness mixed with resignation, a pained sigh rather than a shriek of anger. All of the important quotes from “Bartleby the Scrivener” listed here correspond, at least in some way, to the paper topics above and by themselves can give you great ideas for an essay by offering quotes about other themes, symbols, imagery, and motifs than those already mentioned. He is aware of the world. Plot Overview B. Thesis Statement: The short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” is very difficult to interpret. If you need this or any other sample, we can send it to you via email. As the story begins, the Lawyer realizes he needs another copyist. "You must agree to out terms of services and privacy policy", Get to Know The Price Estimate For Your Paper, By clicking “Write my paper”, you agree to our, Analysis of Short Story Bartleby, the Scrivener, By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our, By clicking Send Me Sample you agree on the, The Tall Woman and Her Short Husband Short Story Analysis, Analysis of The Telegram a short story by writer Iain Crichton Smith, Gimpel the Fool: A Critical Analysis of the Short Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Ask Writer For He is therefore an opposite or complement to Bartleby in many ways. Read “Bartleby the Scrivener” again with more skepticism about the narrator, and more of his faults will be illuminated. Melville's short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener," has provided his readers and critics with enough material to speculate upon Bartleby's condition and the message the writer intends to send through his peculiar character. Our customer support team is available Monday-Friday 9am-5pm EST. He is also ill suited to be entrusted with the salvation of another. He is passively stubborn C. He looses interest in his work III. “I thought Turkey would appreciate the favour, and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. Even his famous statement of non-compliance, “I would prefer not to,” is an act of exhaustion rather than active defiance. Thesis Statement / Essay Topic #3: Is the Narrator Reliable in “Bartleby the Scrivener”? At Paperap.com you will find a wide variety of top-notch essay and term paper samples on any possible topics absolutely for free. Bartleby writes swiftly and accurately for the first few days. Students looking for free, top-notch essay and term paper samples on various topics. The bond of a common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom. Works Cited http://www. The Best Free Resource for Outstanding Essay and Paper Topics, Thesis Statements and Important Quotes. “Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered to invade my peace” (986). The emptiness of modern business life is an important theme. sparknotes. Bartleby the Scrivener. “Bartleby the Scrivener” Outline I. The image of the turf is ambiguous. It is not “I will not” but “I would prefer not,” emphasizing that Bartleby is acting out of emotional response rather than some philosophical or ethical choice. Thesis Plagiarism Checker - Why You Should Use It I would describe this plagiarism checker as a basic necessity for anyone writing a thesis. Hi there, would you like to get such a paper? However, we really never know why or what causing this odd behavior because Melville provides little information about the character Bartleby. With each time he reiterates the statement, he is renouncing one more piece of the world and its duties. “Dead letters! Later, we learn that Bartleby haunts the building. Note also in the descriptions of Turkey and Nippers, there is some sort of organic mechanization in the way they work, and how their temperaments change: “Their fits relieved each other, like guards. He is a “safe” man, one who takes few risks and tries above all to conform. They provide valuable comic relief in what is otherwise a somber and upsetting tale. Conclusion: A. Restate thesis B. Reflections “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” The short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” is very difficult to interpret. Yet most adapt to it, with varying degrees of success. Nippers cherishes ambitions of being more than a mere scrivener, while the elderly Turkey must plead with the narrator to consider his age when evaluating his productivity. 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