Bartleby, by Herman Melville, written in first person as an anecdote, deals with the story of a lawman that comes to hire a peculiar individual, named, precisely, Bartleby, that decides that he ?prefers? not to obey any of the orders he receives from his employer. Bartleby, slowly but surely, moves into the office, taking hold of it, but prefers not to work or talk about himself. His conviction prevails constantly, and his employer is unable to find the courage or meanness to get rid of him violently. Finally, the employer feels obliged to move his office out, instead of putting Bartleby on the street. He feels sorrow and sympathy towards this bizarre and quiet character, yet he also finds him intolerable. Soon after moving, the new tenants start complaining becau

William Wilson, by Edgar Allan Poe, also narrated in the first person, has a slightly more macabre development. It deals with a man that lacks moral purpose, and devotes his life to satisfying his ambition. Only as a student, he stumbles upon a man that shares his name and birth date, William Wilson, who is the only one who does not yields easily in verbal confrontations. This man, with a soft-spoken voice, establishes an unusual bond with the narrator. Although they will never be friends, there is mutual respect for each other?s resistance. Later in life they lose contact, yet, whenever the narrator is about to undertake an action that could be considered inadequate, his homonym appears to let him know so. Until, at the end, William Wilson, frustrated and angry, attacks the other William Wilson and gives him death, only to discover that he has killed his conscience, he has killed himself.

This is the power of guilt, indeed. A force of invisible nature but extreme force. Only death can free us from it, yet sometimes even after death it continues to haunt us, as in Bartleby. The narrator, after Bartleby has died, tries to find out something about him, of his past, in an effort to understand what made this man what he was. The only thing he learns is that he used to work in the ?Dead Letter Office?, a job only too adequate, that he later lost. Yet this does not explain the tragic nature of the character.

And so, Melville and Poe had the same concern in writhing these tales, yet they close into the story with different means. Guilt is created by society, by moral standards imposed upon us. Morality is the great invention of the weak, Nietzsche would say. And still, invented or simply discovered, it overpowers our characters. No matter how far they try to go, no matter how much they try, they still care. Melville?s character cannot forget or stop worrying about Bartleby, as much as Poe?s Wilson cannot ignore his rival. An so, these two writers, each in their very unique and eloquent way, come to the same conclusion: We care, thus we suffer.

Perhaps the main difference between the two stories, and also the most enlightening of reading them both, is the nature

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