Essay on Fiction and Bartleby

Nathan Tackett
ENC 1102
19 November 2014
Character Essay
“Bartleby the Scrivener” This short story was written in first person point of view. We know this because there is a person telling a story to us, the readers. He uses the word I a lot which indicates there is a narrator telling us a story from his perspective. We know it is not third person because the narrator uses the word I and an objective third person would be telling the story of others and use words like they, them, him, or her, and refrain from using the pronoun I. I believe that the protagonist of the story is the Narrator and the antagonist is Bartleby. The Narrator is the protagonist because he is minding his own business and Bartleby causes a problem for him. If Bartleby had never entered the story than the Narrator could have gotten a normal employee to help copy the documents instead of Bartleby and never would have had to change offices, or taken responsibility for Bartleby when he preferred not to leave. The Narrator is a dynamic character because he changes throughout the story from being outraged at Bartleby for saying he preferred not to help look over documents to offering to let him live in his house. The narrator is a round character because he gives us a lot of information about himself in the beginning of the story. He wants us to know a few things about himself before he introduces Bartleby because he believes in order to fully understand the story we need to know some things about his personality. Bartleby is a static character because we do not know much about him. Much of the story is a mystery as far as Bartleby’s history. He refuses to tell the Narrator things about his past and general information about him even. We do not learn why he refuses to do certain tasks or learn why he refused to leave the building after Bartleby left. Bartleby is a static character because throughout the story he does not change. The story occurred on Wall Street in New York sometime around 1848. The author tells us the exact location of where it takes place, he says “My chambers were upstairs at No.___ Wall Street”. I am guessing the story is sometime around 1848 because the author makes an allusion to John Jacob Astor, the Narrator mentions John Jacob Astor, but mentions him in his later years, so it may be sometime near the death of John Jacob Astor which took

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