Short Story Comparative Essay

                            Me, Myself, and I: The Individual in Transcendentalism and Modernism

When it comes to studying literature, it is crucial to understand the literary movements that surround an author and their work. From Transcendentalism’s perspective of mankind to Modernism’s disillusionment, literary works represent the values and ideologies of their periods. The same is true for Herman Melville’s transcendentalist short story “Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street” and Ernest Hemingway’s modernist short story “A Clean Well-Lighted Place.” Through representations of their different literary ideologies, Melville and Hemingway emphasize the importance of the individual in one’s perspective of humanity and society.

  When it comes to their perspective of humanity, Melville’s transcendentalist and Hemingway’s modernist perspectives emphasize the need for the individual to be the center of one’s ideology. After his boss asks him to help him examine a document, Melville’s Bartleby simply replies, “I would prefer not to” (7). By highlighting the individualism of Bartleby’s work ethic, this straightforward and concise expression of defiance becomes a symbol of the transcendentalist perspective of the individual as pure in the midst of a corrupting society. This purity then necessitates the individual transcend societal norms and limitations for the sake of establishing a higher standard of morality and humanity. Similarly, Hemingway uses individualism to demonstrate the need for societal change as the young waiter tells the old, deaf customer, “You should have killed yourself last week” (1). Although a less positive perspective of the value of humanity, Hemingway’s narrow focus on the value of the individual characters highlights how they have been shaped by a corrupted and war-torn society, much like Melville’s characters. As such, the individual becomes the focal point of the world and the great mover of society and its values.

In addition to their views of humanity, Melville and Hemingway also highlight the connection between the individual and one’s perspective of society. In the wake of Bartleby’s refusal to work, the narrator “concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for [his] future leisure” (Melville 7). Melville’s attempt to defamiliarize the reader with the structure of society’s conception of labor emphasizes the necessity of the individual in breaking down such a system through resistance, however slowly that process may be in the “forgetting” for the sake of “leisure.” In the same way, Hemingway demonstrates the power of the individual in society as he adapts the Lord’s Prayer, stating, “Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada” (3). The repetition of “nada” displays the individual as being detached from traditional societal structures (religion) for the sake of the promotion of the individual as the social/moral force of society. Each individual is responsible for their response to such a system and the obligation to become defiant in combat to it. By not depending on God or societal structures for meaning, the individual is presented as the focal point of the world for personal and societal change.

By representing the literary ideologies of their periods, Melville and Hemingway highlight the necessity of an individual being the center of one’s view of humanity and society. Whether one faces the harsh realities of a broken labor system or the disillusionment following the devastation of war, the power of an individual is not to be overlooked as they face a fractured society and seek to change it for the better. After all, who better to spark change than me, myself, and I?\

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” Yale Learning, 1933, yale.learningu.org/download/51358dbc-0c73-4e33-8cfb-967c55a621f5/H2976_Hemingway_A Clean Well Lighted Place.pdf.

Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street.” Eben Moglen, 1856, moglen.law.columbia.edu/LCS/bartleby.pdf.