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Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener


            Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener - A Literary Analysis .
             Bartleby the Scrivener is a story that takes place on Wall .
             Street, peopled by workers of a common mold. Being a non-conformatist of .
             the most extreme type, Bartleby is eventually suffers a death of .
             attrition. The message that Melville intends for the reader is how .
             society has little tolerance for social deviance. .
             I mentioned a common mold, the engine which impelled the b.
             "society" of Wall Street to keep on existing. This common mold consists .
             of working a full day, going home and relax, possibly drinking some beer .
             or whatnot. .
             This is where the theme of ostracization of social deviance comes .
             into play, expressed in the metaphor of individual versus society. Those .
             who do not fit into the common mold are pressured to change or are .
             removed forcibly. Bartleby is an example of a character that doesnÍt fit .
             anywhere even near the mold and is "removed.".
             Within this society that upholds the common mold there is a .
             hierarchy of obsessive qualities, some of which are admired and others .
             which are scorned and deemed to be in the realm of dysfunctionalism. .
             Bartleby is character that holds an aesthetic of performing only a single .
             action to the exclusion to everything else, this is his obsession.
             BartlebyÍs obsession proceeds throught three stages before his .
             demise. Initially BartlebyÍs obsession is with his employ as a scrivener .
             by the narrator, and works day and night "as if famished for something to .
             copy." His obsession is single-mindedly with accomplishing as much .
             copying as humanly possible to the exclusion of everything else. The .
             first few attempts of the narrator to tell Bartleby to do something else, .
             no matter how slight the task, are abortive. The narrator chooses to .
             overlook this shortcoming due to the meritorious nature of BartlebyÍs .
             obsession for his work. After a series of requests from the narrator .


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