Herman Melville

A detailed Summary of Herman Melville

Herman Melville was a man who wrote of man's innocence and man's evil. He wrote of the agonies of self-discovery, as well as the betrayal one receives on the way to these discoveries.

In the early part of Melville's life, he looked upon humanity and saw innocence. He saw man and life in an optimistic way. At that time in his life, he wrote many of his adventurous stories, which made him so popular in the literary world. With this confidence, Melville felt the need to expand his writing style more; he wanted to write more out of his soul. During this period of his life the now classic Moby Dick was written. Moby Dick is a story "in which a whaling voyage becomes the image of man's struggle against the forces of the universe," (American Literature) and was aspired by Melville's keen interest in the inter-workings of God, Nature, and Man. This story represents the changes that Melville was experiencing. Before writing Moby Dick Herman Melville was an innocent man. He viewed life as good, and every man as open and hardworking, but after Moby Dick was published people portrayed him differently. The majority of the people did not enjoy Melville's new style of writing, and his book was considered a fai

Despite his failure in popularity and finance, Melville continued to write. This persistence showed Melville in his best light. Many often think of Melville as pessimistic, but in truth he was just showing what society could do to a man who is different, who thinks out of the box. Sure, Emerson can say that man is to be one with nature, but as soon as one says that man can be wrong, the world stops. Melville looked at man's faults and society didn't want to hear him; they didn't want to hear that you and I and she and him were part of the problem. Melville showed the destruction of society to a brilliant man in his semi-autobiographical short-story Bartleby the Scrivener. Bartleby the Scrivener is a story about a young copyist who works in a law firm on Wall Street. For the first few days he works well, doing all of his work, but nearing the end of the week he begins to stop working. When asked by his boss to look over some important documents he replies, "I'd prefer not to." This reply causes the Boss to be somewhat dumbfounded, and knowing not how to handle the situation, he doesn't fire Bartleby. But the situation doesn't change; Bartleby does no work and never leaves the office. In the end, after even changing buildings, Bartleby remains the same, and so the Lawyer calls the authorities and Bartleby is taken away to prison, where he eventually dies. It is rumored later on that he once worked in a Dead Letter office, and

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Approximate Word count = 974
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: People