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Bartleby, The Failure - College Essays

Bartleby, The Failure

It is not rare, sometimes it is even common, that an author speaks about his or
her self in their works. Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is often
considered such a story. Many of the characters in the story and images created
allude to Melville's writing career, which was generally deemed a failure. The
main character in the story can either be Bartleby or the narrator, but Melville
partially embodies both of them. We are understanding towards the narrator's
reasoning for keeping Bartleby and for the sympathy he shows for Bartleby. After
the general failure of Moby Dick, at least in Melville's time, he immediately
wrote Pierre, which was a deeply personal novel. This self ...

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Moby Dick, his career was already in decline. His
disappointment was only to increase as his career diminished until his death
which was hardly noticed in the literary community. The narrator also resembles
Melville, but in a different way. Melville uses the narrator to view his own
situation from a 3rd person perspective. He attempts, and is somewhat
successful, in getting readers to feel sympathy for Bartleby, therefore,
sympathy for him. On the contrary, the narrator also scorns Bartleby's
persistence after he stops copying: "In plain fact, he had now become a
millstone to me…"(1149). In this respect, the narrator also represents
Melville's literary critics. Behind the relationship between Melville, the
narrator, and Bartleby, one can also see the relationship between the narrator
and an ideal audience that Melville would have wanted. He probably wished that
his writing would be more popular among the readers, although he professed his
own demise with Bartleby's atrophy. ...

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Bartleby, The Failure. (2007, June 14). Retrieved October 24, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Bartleby-The-Failure/66450

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 6/14/2007 12:49:39 PM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 460
Pages: 2

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