Melville Essay

Edwin Rodriguez
English 16
Professor McCormick
Journal Essay

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street

"My chambers were up stairs at No. - Wall Street. At one end they looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky- light shaft, penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape painters call "life." But if so, the view from the other end of my chambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In that direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no spy- glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the benefit of all near- sighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my window panes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern." Melville


As I read a particular paragraph from "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street," by Herman Melville I got the impression of his artistic and creative side. In the beginning of this paragraph Melville talks about his offices on Wall Street in a rather descriptive way. The way he describes it without exactly naming what he's talking about shows what an amazing writer this man is. He starts off the new paragraph talking about his offices. Instead of calling it his actual offices he calls it his chamber. Melville writes, "My chambers were up stairs at No. - Wall- Street."

Melville pokes fun at the view people have from the windows. He writes, "This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape painters call "life." When he talks about the landscape painters call life, it came to me as he was talking about the view of New York City from the building. We can all call that "life" seeing the everyday activity going on that we always ignore. In opposite to the view he describes the other side of the building as a view of a brick wall.

I fully don't understand the whole descriptions and metaphors Melville uses when he writes. But when I try to decode his writing such as this paragraph, it became clear to me. Melville is very descriptive when he writes. I commend him on his intellect and creativity with words especially on this paragraph of his descriptions.